Thinking of Yourself as Good or Bad

In all my years working in the fitness industry, I have noted patterns of behavior that many of us share.  Unfortunately, most of the behavioral patterns that I see are destructive and hold us back from getting what we really want.  This is a shame, as I do believe that people begin a new fitness and eating plan with good intentions.  Here is but one of the many negative thought patterns that I have observed over the years and have fallen prey to, myself: Thinking of yourself as GOOD or BAD!

If you believe that you are good when you stick to your plan and bad when you take a detour or have a minor setback, you are going to turn a LAPSE into a RELAPSE and finally, suffer a total COLLAPSE!

Let’s say you fall off the wagon.  First, you tell yourself you are bad; yes, you are a bad person because you ate the left over pizza in the fridge.  Labeling yourself as “bad” will make you feel like a failure. You are not good at anything, and Mother was right: you will never marry, have seven cats and die alone.  You think, “What’s the use of even trying?”

Now you feel like you have “blown it,” and since you are a bad person AND a failure and have blown it, why not just totally blow it?

Finally, you spiral into state of worthlessness because you are bad, you are a failure, you have “blown it,” and you have wasted one more day of your life that you’ll never get back.

Sound familiar?  I have been stuck here, circling the drain, myself.

You are not a bad person; you are not a lost cause, and you will eventually get where you desire.  If you can emotionally detach from the process and look at what you do objectively, you will see that you are neither good nor bad for any choice that you make.  Some decisions you make will be better than others, but if you get so emotionally involved that any deviation from your plan sends you into a tailspin of self-degradation and eating everything that you can find, you will never feel good about yourself.

If you always feel like a failure, you will continue to punish yourself, usually with binge eating or exercising beyond what is reasonable and healthy.

Hit the reset button, and keep it moving.  It is hard to do, I know, but you need to use your time productively, not destructively.  You are not good or bad based on how well you follow your program on any given day.  Do the best you can from this moment forward and don’t waste time beating yourself up over what you did or didn’t do.  Life is short–live it NOW!

Failure is a great teacher. Learn from your mistakes and keep moving forward.

Live with Simplicity,

TMS