Tag: self-sabotage

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Awareness & Perception Thoughts on Change

Confirmation Bias: The Power of Our Beliefs

Why take the time to figure out what we believe? Whether we are aware of them or not, our beliefs about a specific area can greatly impact the assumptions that support those beliefs and the values we hold that are based on those beliefs.

Our beliefs guide our thoughts and behaviors. We tend to look for or create situations that support what we believe to be true.

Just think about everyone’s favorite blue donkey, Eeyore. He seemed to always find himself in the worst situations. Do you remember all those times when it only rained on him?

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Sometimes I have all the best intentions but then fall back into an old habit. Usually, that happens when I have an underlying limiting belief about what I can or can’t do. When I think about my assumptions and beliefs, I can begin to see how I could be unconsciously sabotaging my own efforts.

Acknowledging and analyzing beliefs can help us figure out several things. For now, let’s focus on these two:

  • why we aren’t consistently doing the things we want to do
  • why we continue to do things we don’t want to do

Henry Ford said it best when he said, “Whether you think you can or think you can’t. You’re right.” Are there things that you believe you can or can’t do? Maybe you tried something one time and it didn’t go very well. Or maybe you thought about doing something different, but were told that you couldn’t do it. No matter how these limiting beliefs developed, now is a good time to reassess their truth and usefulness.

“Can”s and “Can’t”s: Internalized Beliefs

I have worked with many people who believe they can’t control their eating. They generally think that they are too weak or too emotional to choose the right food for their body. Usually, these limiting beliefs are related to their faulty assumptions about themselves, others, and/or the world.

Through individual coaching, I work with people to acknowledge and analyze their faulty assumptions and limiting beliefs. What I have seen is that people tend to pay attention to experiences that support what they already believe.

Science backs this up with studies about belief perseverance and the confirmation bias. Basically, these studies show that we more easily see things that are in line with our current beliefs.

Think about a time when you were in a really good mood. Maybe you woke up feeling energized, had the perfect cup of coffee, and got to work without struggling or rushing. However you achieved it, you were experiencing a higher than normal level of happiness. You probably noticed more people smiling at you. You might have even seen and taken advantage of additional opportunities that would increase your happiness. Maybe you noticed that the other drivers on the road were much more courteous to you.

Chances are, the external world was just the same as it has always been. The only difference was your perspective, which was based on your current filter of happiness.

This works the same with other things we believe about the world. If we believe that we can’t control our eating behavior, then we will see the world in a way that supports this belief. When we encounter a situation where we are tempted, we will fall back on habitual patterns instead of remembering the reasons we are choosing a different option. If we really believe that we can’t control our eating behavior, we may not even see the other options that are available to us.

If we believe that our current behaviors are protecting us or serving us in some way, we will continue to engage in those behaviors. There is a hidden logic to the way our brains work to protect us from perceived danger. Figuring out how you are unconsciously fulfilling your beliefs can make this hidden logic visible. Once you are aware of these beliefs, you are free to choose whether or not they need to be changed.

Acknowledging Our Beliefs

I believe that we can all choose to do things that are good for us. Acknowledging our beliefs is a good place to start. Once we know what we believe, we can test to see if those beliefs are true and helpful. We can also try out new beliefs that might be more productive.

Learning to let go of limiting beliefs is one of the keys to making positive changes and maintaining our motivation when it gets hard. If you want to explore your limiting beliefs, pick one thing that is not working well and explore your beliefs in that area. Watch your thoughts and behaviors in that specific area of your life.

These self-reflection questions are similar to the questions about faulty assumptions. The main difference is that we are now focusing on what you believe to be true, rather than what you assume that you, others, or the world should be or do. Beliefs are generally based on assumptions.

If you want to explore your limiting beliefs, ask yourself these questions:

  • Are there any patterns in my language that demonstrate what I believe? What do I repeatedly say to myself? What do I repeatedly say to others?
  • What are my “can”s, and “can’t”s?
  • Are these beliefs always true?
  • Are these beliefs currently helpful and productive?
  • What assumptions are holding up these beliefs? Are these assumptions still true, helpful, and productive?
  • Is there one belief that I could shift to something more helpful and productive?
  • What can I try over the next week that might allow me to see beyond my limiting beliefs?

Hopefully, these self-reflection questions will provide some insight about how limiting beliefs (and the underlying assumptions) contribute to our thoughts and behaviors.

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Balanced Nutrition

How Did You Lose All That Weight? Pt. 2 – Balanced Nutrition

Did you know that successful weight loss is primarily a result of what you eat? I used to think that exercise was the key, but I was wrong. I’m not saying that we don’t need to exercise. In fact, balanced exercise is vital to overall health. What I am saying is that it is extremely hard, if not impossible, to exercise enough to work off a habit of making unhealthy food choices. Not to mention the fact that when you eat junk you don’t really have the energy to exercise.

If you didn’t read Part 1 of this series, it would probably be in your best interest to read that one first. It covers the importance of our beliefs about food, exercise, and health. Without understanding your beliefs, any behavior change is likely to fail.

According to Robert Kegan’s research, and my experience, we will unconsciously sabotage our own efforts to prove that our underlying beliefs are correct. So, it’s best to figure out why you are doing something before you try to change it.

Keep It Simple

One of my favorite food journalists is Michael Pollan. In The Omnivore’s Dilemma, he offers three guidelines for eating: “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.” He goes on to provide a filter through which we can consider our food choices: “Don’t eat anything your great-grandmother wouldn’t recognize as food.” That seems pretty simple until you try to put it into practice.

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So, what does this mean in today’s fast-paced, microwaved, super-sized world? It means that if we are going to eat healthy foods that nourish our body, mind, and spirit, we need to take a step back.  In order to make healthy food choices, we need to allow ourselves the mental space and time to consider what our bodies really need. You may even need to start planning and preparing your meals in advance.

For those who are interested, my daily eating habits typically include Bulletproof coffee (with butter and MCT oil), vegetables, meat, nuts, and a little fruit. That’s about it. I still enjoy eating out occasionally, but I try to stick with low-carb options.

If you are trying to lose weight, I suggest that you temporarily reduce the amount of fruit. If you do eat fruit, then stick with berries.

Experiment and Personalize

Figure out what works for your body. There is no “one-size-fits-all” eating plan. Here are some general areas to consider when you begin to experiment with your own eating style.

Macronutrient Ratios

This refers to the balance between carbohydrates, protein, and fat. The basic advice you will usually receive is to eat 45-65% of your calories in carbohydrates, 10-35% in protein, and 20-35% in fat. That might work for you, but it did not work for me.

I found that I could easily lose weight if my carbohydrate intake was less than 75 grams per day. For me,  that is typically 20-25% of my daily calories. I discovered this by systematically adjusting my diet and tracking my weight to see how different ratios impacted weight loss or gain. At one point, I started adding more carbohydrates to stop losing weight!

Over the years, I have discovered that many people lose weight on a lower carbohydrate diet. This does not mean that you should eat 75 grams of carbohydrates per day. What it does mean is that you should begin to track your food intake and weight to see what your body needs.

Inflammatory Foods

There have been studies linking chronic inflammation to diabetes, obesity, heart disease, and mental health conditions, among other problems. If you can avoid foods that lead to inflammation, it makes sense to do that for your weight as well as your overall health.

Some common inflammatory foods are sugar, vegetable-based cooking oils, trans fats, alcohol, dairy, and refined grains. Many people respond negatively to these foods, but there are also individual food sensitivities and allergies to consider.

For instance, I am sensitive to gluten. When I eat food containing gluten I wake up the next day with puffy eyes, swollen hands, and a stuffy nose. Time and time again, this is what I have found.

Do you know what foods you are sensitive to? Tracking your food and watching your responses is a great way to learn more about the right foods for your body. If you want a more stringent strategy, you might try a 30-day elimination diet.

Timing of Meals

There has been a lot of advice in the media about eating several small meals a day or only eating during a certain window of time (intermittent fasting). I’m not here to tell you that either one is better. From what I have seen, both strategies (as well as the traditional three meals a day) can work.

The main thing to consider is whether or not you are actually hungry. If you are hungry, then you should eat something. The tricky part is knowing if you are hungry. Before you decide to eat something, just take a minute to check in with yourself. If you decide that you are hungry, think about what you really want to eat rather than just grabbing something convenient.

It is also important to stop eating when you are full. Eat a little more slowly so that you can notice when the food no longer tastes amazing. Or maybe you can even notice the beginning sensations of food entering your stomach. In order to do these things, you have to begin paying attention to the signals that your body is sending you.

Technology Can Help

There are several technology tools that we can use to keep us on track. Here are a few of my favorites:

  • MyFitnessPal: Many people use this simple app to track what they eat. I also use it to track my weight. It will allow you to print a graph of your weight and macronutrients over a certain period of time. This function allowed me to figure out the right macronutrient ratio for my body.
  • GymPact: This app serves as an accountability partner. You set your weekly goals for getting exercise, logging food, and eating vegetables. If you reach your goals, you get paid. If you fail to reach your goals, you have to pay. We are talking about real money here.  I use this on and off, just to keep myself accountable.
  • Fitbit: My favorite feature is the sleep tracking function. It has helped me figure out how much sleep I need to feel my best. Sleep is another one of those factors that can make or break your weight loss efforts, so it’s pretty important.

Please Share and Comment

Of course, this post is a little long. It is one of my favorite subjects and there is so much more that could be added. I hope this has been beneficial. Try some of the strategies for personalizing your own diet. Remember to document what you are doing and track your progress. That is the only way to know if it is working for you.

As always, let me know how it goes.

 

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Awareness & Perception Thoughts on Change

How Did You Lose All That Weight? Pt. 1 – Dynamic Beliefs

At least once a week, someone asks me how I lost so much weight. Just to be clear, I lost about 40 pounds over the course of a couple of months. Once I explain that I lost the weight over two years ago, they naturally want to know how I kept it off. These are usually quick conversations. I try to share the most relevant piece of the story for that person at that moment.

Losing 40 pounds may not seem like a lot to some people, but for me, the journey changed the way I see myself and the world around me. The next couple of posts will summarize my weight loss journey; however, I have to warn you, it was not an easy process until I found the right keys for me.

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My Beliefs About Weight

When you want to make any change, it is a good idea to decide what you believe about that thing. In general, we do things because they line up with our beliefs, whether we know it or not. Our beliefs and resulting behaviors typically function to protect us from something we don’t want or to help us get something we do want.

If you are trying to make a change, you will want to explore your beliefs and figure out how you benefit from that behavior. In my case, I believed that being overweight would protect me from unwanted male attention. If I wanted to justify my behavior, I could find many good reasons that this belief was protective. It took me a long time to realize that this was the major underlying belief that was sabotaging my efforts to lose weight.

Of course, there are other beliefs about weight, eating behavior, and health. For instance, some families value eating big meals together. If you show up for family dinner and only eat a few things, some family members may get offended. In an effort to be polite, we may eat for social reasons rather than health reasons.

I also believed that I could exercise enough to “work off” the consequences of bad food choices. Through education and experimentation, I learned that this is not true. Another dysfunctional belief was that low-fat foods were good for me. Wow, was I wrong!

The saddest belief was that I could motivate myself to “do right” by berating myself when I fell short of my desired goals or behaviors. That ended up putting me in a state of mind where I didn’t even want to try anymore. This self-criticism further eroded my self-image, specifically my body-image, making it easier to make excuses than to look for solutions. If this happens to you, check out the post about self-compassion.

There are also emotional reasons that people make unhealthy food choices. That was not necessarily one of my beliefs around food, but it is for many people. My closest example of this is that I find myself wanting high-carb foods when I am tired. I still believe that a quick hit of sugar will give me a brief burst of energy; however, I also know that there are consequences. In the moment, I might not have the mental energy to weigh the pros and cons of the inevitable consequences of the sugar crash.

Changing My Beliefs

After “yo-yo dieting” for my entire life, I finally found the work of Robert Kegan. I have written about his work before in the context of balancing challenge and support. In addition to that aspect of adult development, he also studies why we fail to make the changes we say we want to make. He has a name for this natural tendency: Immunity to Change.

The basic idea behind it is that we have hidden, competing beliefs or commitments that work against our expressed goal. These hidden beliefs, once brought to the light, perfectly explain the behaviors we engage in that sabotage our effort to change. I will write more about working through the Immunity to Change later, but for now, you can check out his website: Minds At Work.

In doing this work, I found that I no longer needed to hold on to extra weight to protect myself. I was able to reframe that belief in the context of my current life circumstances, skills, and abilities.

I also found that I didn’t really want to “lose weight.” What I really wanted was to “gain health.” That’s a powerful difference. It helped me because my previous weight loss efforts were focused on pushing away things I didn’t want. This new focus allowed me to explore and pursue what I really did want.

Assessing Your Own Beliefs

Once you do the work, you may find that you have different beliefs behind your behaviors around eating, exercise, and health. Whatever those beliefs are, it is important that you acknowledge and accept that they are your beliefs. You might even need to practice some self-compassion regarding the fact that you even have those beliefs in the first place.

A more simple version of the Immunity to Change process involves simply exploring the pros and cons of your current and desired behaviors. I am attaching a simple worksheet that will guide you through assessing your own inner conflict about making a change. You are welcome to print it out and ask yourself these questions. Balancing Pros and Cons

Knowing your beliefs is a great first step. Once you can find awareness, acknowledgment, and acceptance of these beliefs, you are in a good position to explore whether or not they are still true. They might be true. It is more likely that they are outdated and more extreme than what is necessary for your current life.

If you want to test your beliefs, just try doing the opposite. For me, I tested the belief that I need high-carb foods when I’m tired. I tried just avoiding that temptation by distracting myself. I tried replacing the high-carb food with a high-fat or high-protein snack. I also tried a brief meditation or short walk instead of the high-carb food. In my case, all of those turned out to be better options than letting my outdated belief guide my behavior.

There is much more to this story, but I’ve been told that my blogs tend to get a little long. In an effort to honor your time and attention, I will save the rest for later. Those who know me personally, know that I love to talk about nutrition, exercise, and sleep. In fact, I could talk about those things all day if someone would listen.

In the meantime, check out your own beliefs around food, exercise, and health. Try to work with one specific problematic behavior at a time. Ask yourself the questions on the Balancing Pros and Cons worksheet. Don’t rush to an answer. Ask the question, take a couple of deep breaths, and see what comes up.

Let me know how it goes.

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Thoughts on Change

Standing in Our Own Way

Sometimes things seem to spin out of control. But then, sometimes things seem to spin in perfect harmony. How do I (my perspective and my response) play a part in the outcome? It seems that we have much more control over how we interact with the world than most of us would like to admit. In fact, many times we are standing in the way of our own progress and happiness.

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Knowing What We Control

At work, many people come to me with concerns about situations that they (nor I) have much control over. What do I do? Well, as a good school psychologist and adult educator, I listen. I ask good questions to help them think through various aspects of the situation. Then, I wait for them to realize which part of the situation they can do something about.

Typically, the people I work with come up with brilliant ideas about how they can improve their part of the situation. The place they often get stuck is trying to get other people to change or do things their way. I’m guilty of this too. It’s just easier to see it in other people.

Changing What We Can

This means that we know which parts of a situation are within our control. It also means being able to clearly see how we are keeping ourselves from making positive changes. Sometimes we get stuck thinking about “what if…” or “yes, but…” and talk ourselves out of making changes.

There are psychologically based reasons that we do this. We could talk about cognitive dissonance, where our brains create weird equations to help us balance our beliefs and actions (including words). Or we could talk about the immunity to change where we unconsciously sabotage our change efforts in an attempt to protect ourselves from something.

Either way, we have to recognize and acknowledge what is standing between our current behavior and the change we know we need to make.

Letting Go Of The Rest

Once we recognize what we can control and figure out how we are standing in our own way, then we are free to come up with some logical next steps for our own personal change goal. We are still committed to correcting the situation by doing what we can do.

When we fully own our part we can let go of the desire to change others or get them to do things our way. We can free ourselves from the pressure to “save” the world.

The Dynamic Balance

Maybe it’s just me, but I would like to see everyone live a life that is happy, free, and balanced. But, that’s not the case for everyone, for many, many reasons. At this point in my life, I am honored to share what I know with those who want to make positive changes in their lives.

For those who want to keep spinning in circles, that’s their choice. The fact that there is a better way to live life is what gets me out of bed in the morning. It’s the reason I go to work every day. And, it’s the reason I continually remind myself that those who do not want to grow and change are not the people I am here to serve.

Please Share and Comment

Do you ever find yourself standing in your own way? Do you ever feel like you keep going in circles around the same problems? What benefit are you getting from repeating these same patterns? How do you get out of your own way?