goals; Stop Sabotaging yourself
Who's your Internal Troll sabotaging your most desired outcome?
When that Inner Troll or external force reminds you of your insecurities and you’re tempted to quit and start a new thing entirely, try to set small and achievable goals to prove that wrong. No one is going to make you workout or eat healthy but YOU! Yes, when you have a personal trainer accountability becomes helpful and sometimes simplified, but your lasting goal achievement is on you and you’re the one benefiting, or not.
For example, going from what may be possible for you “I want to lose 20lbs this year” to a smaller probable goal "I can stop eating after 8pm on weeknights.” Witness yourself winning over and over again for the next couple of weeks. Then, once you’ve adopted the behavior 80% of the time, Yes you may be bad and miss a day, you are in charge not the trolling sabotage. If you feel ready to try another small goal, do it! Just make sure it’s related to your desired outcome so what you desire becomes possible.
Remember no one gets it right all the time, so in the moments you don’t follow through on your goal, see if you can follow through the next day. If you continue to fail, then it’s time to set a new goal. Try one that’s easier for you or tweak the one you’ve made so it works better. For example, “I will drink 2 more glasses of water per day.” or “ I will stop eating after 8pm Monday-Wednesday.” DON’T QUIT! You haven’t proven to yourself that you can accomplish your goal yet. Show that Troll who is in charge here. Endurance (period).
More often than not it will take a great deal of energy and sometimes negotiation to get started on a fitness or wellness habit. This will likely look like talking yourself into it, setting alarms, scheduling time in your calendar, and or signing up for classes until it becomes easy. Rarely do people who aren’t already involved in a health or workout routine jump out of bed at 5:45 in the morning to start a 6:30 workout before work or automatically stop to think about how they are eating! It takes a little bit of practice and showing yourself you can succeed.
Read on to learn about how our brains develop, even in mature adulthood when your practice new rewarding behavior.
Have you heard of the Hebbian Learning neuropsychological theory by Donald Hebb in 1949? Well, I hadn't until recently when reading a Reframe email newsletter. Below are the basic findings of the study.
“When an axon of cell A is near enough to excite cell B and repeatedly or persistently takes part in firing it, some growth process or metabolic change takes place in one or both cells such that A’s efficiency, as one of the cells firing B, is increased” (1).
Basically what this means is when you do something like stop eating before 8pm over and over again your brain develops a familiar pathway and strengthens its memory of eating before 8pm. This, neuroplasticity, turns activities that were once challenging to start feeling familiar and easier over time.
You can choose to start, re-start, and try something else at any point. My point is to give yourself and your brain a chance at changing or developing a new behavior. Over time, see what sticks and see what doesn't stick.
