How to Stop Making Excuses and Take Charge of Your Health Goals

Who doesn’t make excuses? From skipping the gym to overeating when we’re full, we can eke out any and all excuses about why we can’t stick to our health goals. Most of the time, we do this subconsciously. In fact, the excuses come from little parts inside of us that have a need. They seem like excuses but in fact when we come up with an excuse it means a part of us is scared or trying to protect us in some way.  It takes conscious effort to break our habit of making excuses. We need to listen to the excuses with curiosity and compassion so we can get the excuses to change perhaps.  In this episode, I discuss why we become prone to making excuses. I also talk about getting rid of triggers that cause us to stray away from our diets. Lastly, I share a terrific tool that can help you reign in your tendency to make excuses and sabotage yourself from achieving your goals. Before you tune in to the full episode, I want you to know about my class! Join my virtual 10-week Class! I love this class. It has SO much information and will give you exactly what you need to change your sabotaging or puzzling patterns. This transformative and in-depth class will include pre-recorded videos, audio recordings, handouts, and membership in a Facebook community. I am so confident that it will help you that I offer a money-back guarantee!  If you would prefer more individualized help, the link to my website and email is right here:  [email protected] or visit my website. This podcast episode will help you with these three things:  Understand more clearly why you might make excuses and self-sabotage. Learn how to be compassionate with yourself. Discover a tool that can bring you a step closer to your healthy eating goals. Episode Highlights Why We Make Excuses and Self-Sabotage We are all prone to making excuses and conceding to behaviors that we later regret. This vulnerability is what makes us human.  For example, we often convince ourselves that being “good all week” gives us a pass to stop caring and just eat.  The stress and tension generated because you had to be good all week often creates a need to have a break.   With so much effort towards being good, your inner world will instinctively attempt to balance things out. You will have a thought, “just tonight, just one bite, etc.”   There’s nothing wrong with eating. The problem is when eating is out of alignment with the needs of your body, when it’s not a choice but a compulsion, or when it becomes overeating. By becoming aware of our excuse patterns with curiosity we can often stop and decide differently.  Avoiding Triggers Everyone has different triggers and trigger foods that might take over or that might make you feel tense or overwhelmed. Triggers can create an internal tug of war. “Should I eat it or not? If I don’t eat it, will I just obsess about it all day?” In this episode, Betsy talks about various trigger examples and how to handle them.  The Voice of Resistance Steven Pressfield, the author of The War of Art, said this: “Most of us have two lives: the life we live and the unlived life within us. Between the two stands resistance.” The voice of resistance becomes louder the closer you get to your goals. Betsy explains how this might apply to the eating and dieting world.  Self-Compassion and the Present Tense When you have a goal in mind, you may be prone to overthinking what you did in the past and what you could have done differently.  It’s easy to want to beat yourself up for not doing what you “should” have done. It’s easy to get in a mental cycle of criticism when you overeat or eat too many desserts. The inner critic is always trying to help us, but it’s not helpful. What is helpful is courageously flooding your mind with compassionate thoughts and going to forgiveness. We ALWAYS do what makes sense at the moment, and sometimes that’s eating. We are innocent. When we overeat or make mistakes there’s always a good reason.  It’s incredibly helpful yet incredibly difficult to remember to take a deep breath and focus on the present moment. One foot in front of the other. One moment at a time.  Resisting the Voice of Resistance While resistance can lead you to self-sabotage, it has no strength of its own. You can wield it as a tool to help navigate yourself. In this case, resistance can also be about aligning with your higher self and using it as a learning opportunity. When you find yourself making excuses, you should pay more attention because these excuses are, in itself, your call to action.  Getting Outside Help Taking time with yourself through meditations and mindfulness can provide you with a clearer perspective of what you want. While becoming aware of your thoughts and learning from them is terrific, you may still need an outside observer to help you from time to time. You might want to consider getting help, especially if you’ve been stuck for a while now. Burn Your Bridges Dr. Marsha M. Linehan, a pioneer of dialectical behavior therapy, came up with the “burning your bridges” exercise.  It goes like this: Imagine yourself on a shore, trying to get to an island on the other side using a bridge. Each wooden slat on your bridge is your excuse. The goal is to burn each wooden slat in your mind, looking at them one by one, to stop you from further thinking about these excuses. This exercise will help you realize that you are more powerful than you think.  5 Powerful Quotes from this Episode “If your goal involves sacrifice of pleasure, then you’re going to end up wanting to find an excuse.” “There’s no such thing as bad food.” “When you find yourself making excuses, let these moments be your teachable moments.” “The good news is that resistance has no strength of its own. It is fueled only by fear and self-doubt. And resistance, in fact, is a great teacher and can become your tool for navigation.” “Take a deep breath and find the courage to forgive yourself. Take another deep breath, perhaps, and focus on compassion towards yourself, which is similar to forgiveness. Aren’t you doing the best you can?” Resources The War of Art by Steven Pressfield The Burning Your Bridges Exercise from the DBT Skills Training Manual by Dr. Marsha M. Linehan If you listened to the podcast and enjoyed it, please share and post a review! Have any questions or want to schedule an appointment? You can email me at [email protected] or visit my website. To making peace with eating, Betsy