I take vitamins. I’m not a crazy, over-the-top, vitamin taker, but in addition to trying to have a balanced diet, I try and make sure my body gets what it needs to be as healthy as I can be. Anyway, the reason I am sharing this information is not because I’m going to try and convince you to take vitamins too, but because I noticed a negative pattern of mine that I thought I had put a kibosh on years ago.
A couple of weeks ago, I ran out of one of my vitamins. I made a mental note to buy more (which shouldn’t be too difficult considering there is a vitamin store less than a block from my apartment). Well, it slipped my mind that day, and then again the following day, and the next. Every now and then I would remember but do nothing about it. It ended up taking me about a week to finally get what I needed. On top of this, instead of keeping up with my usual routine of vitamin taking each morning, I temporarily stopped all together.
So, what came up for me (because I am regularly analyzing my own choices and behaviors), is what’s up with the all or nothing mentality?! Why is it so common for people to self sabotage as soon as they “fall off the wagon?” Fortunately, taking my vitamins isn’t going to be life altering (I hope), but when it comes to self care, people generally tend to take the all or nothing approach.
A very obvious example of this behavior, is someone who is on the latest and greatest, lose massive amounts of weight in a teeny tiny amount of time, diet. Said person has been depriving herself, of carbs, sugar, gluten, dairy, or whatever the newest “bad” food is. She’s been so “good” for many days, and has been seeing results, but then one day, she decides to indulge. She tells herself she deserves some pizza and ice cream, and instead of having a slice and a bowl, she eats an entire pizza and a pint of ice cream. Then, later that day, she figures if she’s gonna be bad that day, she might as well be REALLY bad, and proceeds to eat an entire bag of chips, a box of Captain Crunch, and a bite of everything else she can find in her pantry.
I regularly have clients that self sabotage without even realizing it. Whether it be in their relationships, their jobs, their weight, and even their work with me, it’s ultimately all the same…choosing behaviors that are not good for them. When people have spent a lifetime telling themselves they are not good enough, they will always find reasons to prove they are a failure.
So, you may be wondering what you should do the next time you tell yourself you missed a day at the gym this week, so you won’t go at all, or you forgot to pay a bill, so you just won’t pay any of them, or you ate a french fry, so you may as well eat the whole plate. My advice, is to ask yourself, “do I want to feel good, or do I want to feel crappy about myself?” If you want to feel good (and I imagine most of you do if you have read this far), remind yourself how much better it feels when you take good care of yourself. It’s funny, you never hear someone ranting about how awful they feel because they have been so good to themselves.
Try not to beat yourself up if you do have a “bad” day. Instead of being angry at myself for not taking any of my vitamins for a few days, I just noticed it, and questioned why I was making that decision for myself. If you ate a plate of fries when you had been trying to eat healthy, accept it, and move on. Beating yourself up for it, won’t change the fact that you ate the fries, and will in fact make you feel worse and more inclined to overeat for the rest of the day or week. Beating yourself up for being “bad”, is actually what will drive you to be REALLY “bad.” It’s that nasty voice in your head that encourages your all or nothing behavior.
It’s much easier to find the strength to get back on track in life, when you are kind to yourself. The next time you slip up in regards to whatever it is you are working on, remind yourself that what’s done is done, and right now you have the opportunity to make better decisions from this moment forward. If you missed the gym today, you can always go tomorrow. If you ate an unhealthy lunch, you can have a healthy dinner. If you want to change your all or nothing ways, you gotta start by telling yourself you are giving it your ALL, and NOTHING can get in your way!!
