In explaining the word "alignment" to a friend the other day, I used her own dieting experience. She has for years tried to lose weight but, so far, in vain.

The reason is, I said: "You're not in alignment.

"Your mind and your body are not in sync. Your actions are not in alignment with your thoughts and words.

"You keep saying to yourself 'I'll eat less, stop drinking Coke and refuse junk food.' You may sound resolute, but when you sit down to dinner at a restaurant, you can not turn your eyes away from the ice cream.

"You perhaps do eat a few morsels less than usual one day, but you go to Pizza Hut two days later and gorge yourself with those tasty but calorie-rich pizzas.

"One day, you may punish yourself by refusing a piece of chocolate. Then you'll reward yourself with a fat piece of cake.

"In mind, you've for years dedicated to losing weight, but in action, you've not been consistent. That's why you have not been getting results. You've been half-hearted, as they say. You won't get the results that way. Nature won't allow it.

"Only when you bring your actions in alignment with your words, you'll see the results. That's how nature works. You've got to do what you say.

"You've heard of the Non-Aligned Movement (Google to find out more about that, if you will). Right now, you might say you're in a sort of non-alignment movement against yourself.

"We all have our own personal non-aligned movements going on all the time. Namely, we don't always do what we talk about and way too often we talk about what we don't do.

"That's why we're where we are."

Zhang Xin is Trainer at chinadaily.com.cn. He has been with China Daily since 1988, when he graduated from Beijing Foreign Studies University. Write him at: zhangxin@chinadaily.com.cn, or raise a question for potential use in a future column.