
3 Tips To Stop The Self Sabotage Cycle
Change Requires CHANGE
If you’re feeling stuck and know deep down that you could be doing better, don’t wait any longer. Your life is not going to change until you take action and make a bold move towards your goals. If you’re ready to take control of your life and start moving towards the results you want let us help you achieve your goals. ⬇️
Change Requires CHANGE
If you’re feeling stuck and know deep down that you could be doing better, don’t wait any longer. Your life is not going to change until you take action and make a bold move towards your goals. If you’re ready to take control of your life and start moving towards the results you want let us help you achieve your goals. ⬇️
Transcript:
Open Transcript:
Cori (00:00):
Welcome to the Redefining Strength Podcast. Everything you need to succeed on your health and fitness journey, even the stuff you don’t want to hear. It was a horrible day at work. You came home, you went to the cabinet, you know shouldn’t have done it, but you grab the bag of chips, then you go to the freezer, you grab the pint of ice cream, the couches call in your name, you head over and before you even get to the couch, half of the bag of chips is gone. And then you think, well, I’ve ruined the day. I’m not even going to go work out. I might as well just eat this pint of ice cream and then who cares about anything else? I’m just going to order some stuff on DoorDash. And all of a sudden you’re laying on the couch at the end of the night, completely miserable, feeling extremely guilty, and you just say to yourself, I just keep repeating this pattern.
(00:49):
I’m never going to see progress. You wake up the next morning, you don’t feel good about it, you feel extra super guilty. You were on such a good stretch. You step on the scale. Holy moly, it has just skyrocketed. This is what I call the flat tire situation. What happens is we get a flat tire, we go to the cabinet, we maybe have a couple of the chips even, and we do have that turn back point right then or that stopping point right then where we could say, Nope, I’m putting this bag back in the cabinet. I’m not grabbing the pint of ice cream out of the freezer. But instead, when we get that flat tire, instead of pulling over the side of the road calling aaa, put it on the spare, fixing it and getting on our merry way, instead of that, we get out of the car, we grab a knife and we go, ah, and we start slashing the other three tires.
(01:34):
We eat that bag of chips, we get the pint of ice cream, we DoorDash stuff. And then not only that, we light the car on fire for weeks on end because we just say, well, I ruined yesterday and tomorrow is Friday and I’m not going to be good on the weekend anyway, so who cares? I’ll just start over Monday and one day becomes four days and what could have even been a handful of chips or a bag of chips becomes thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands of calories and bags of chips potentially over that time. And then because we feel worse about our situation starting over Monday doesn’t happen. We’ve all been there with a spiral and it can go on and on and sometimes it lasts for even months. And the simple fact of the matter is we have a choice and if we can get ourselves to pause at that initial choice and change this pattern, we can fix the flat and get moving forward a whole heck of a lot quicker.
(02:25):
And I say this with having a ton of experience with not only getting a flat tire but slashing the other three. And I will tell you the three tactics I’m going to share to really help you fix that flat faster. I sort of noted right there, it’s fix the flat tire faster. It’s not never get a flat tire. Honestly, I won’t even say it’s never slash the other three, but it’s fix it faster because that’s all we can ever do. We are human. We are going to have those stressful days that make us react, but we have to recognize that it’s not really a failure. We just panic a little bit and when we panic a little bit, if we own the mistake we can get moving forward and really ultimately what holds us back the most is that guilt and that sabotage that we do after not even the initial situation.
(03:13):
So I do want to go through sort of three tactics so that we’re not only fixing the flat when we get the flat, but we’re potentially only slashing one tire, not all three, and we’re definitely not lighting the car on fire and just walking away and saying, forget it. Okay, tactic number one, I want you to set a rule and I want you to set a 24 hour rule because one day, one bag of chips, well, it’s human, right? We have those stressful days, we react out of emotion. We want that comfort. That is even a pattern of comfort that we’ve taught ourselves to repeat, right? We feel better in the moment when we do that. It seems like a good idea. It gives us the instant gratification. So we go to it. What isn’t just human or one of those little slip ups is deciding the next morning that we’re not going to get back to those healthy habits or the morning after or the morning after that or the morning after that.
(04:05):
So I want you to set a 24 hour rule for yourself within 24 hours you have done something in a positive direction to put yourself back on the path that you want. And in that time, one of those actions can be to even reflect on what happened. How did your environment set you up to repeat that pattern? And I say environment because I think a lot of times we think about the stress, the emotion as causing it, and yes it does, but then it triggers a consistent sort of pattern to follow. And a lot of times that is only promoted by our environment. We walk into our house the same way the food’s in the same cabinet, we’ve gotten the same types of foods and if we shifted one of those things in our environment, we could actually prevent that pattern from repeating. So I want you to think the next day you’re back on track, so the 24 hour rule, but you’ve also paused within that time to reflect on what you could do next time to make it so that you’re again, maybe still slashing one tire but not all three.
(05:03):
And the more we have that pattern or that rule that we’re not going to do multiple days in a row, the more we can see that we’re even moving forward faster. And that can create that success mindset that allows us to really shift environments, act as if build that new identity that pays off, but we’re interrupting that spiral. So I want you to think how can you really think about creating a sort of rhythm reset or a pattern interrupt for yourself when this does occur, but reflect on it. Give yourself that 24 hour rule. You’re not doing it the next day no matter what happens, but then reflect on it to say, Hey, how can I change this environment? How can I create that sort of rhythm reset when I do get that urge to have the chips and how can I maybe stop myself from going to then to the ice cream or if I went to the ice cream and DoorDash something, how the next morning can I get right back up and on track?
(05:50):
Then tactic number two, track the bounce back, not the breakdown because so often we create that guilt and that’s really where the self-sabotage builds and we snowball down into a spiral of negativity and off track. So we want to think about how can we really focus on that bounce back over the breakdown and it’s taking pride in how much faster did I get back on track? How much did I get back to those healthy habits? Not all the things I did wrong when I made this mistake. So stop obsessing over the slip and start celebrating the rebound whenever you get back on track and maybe it does take you a week the first time, maybe it took you two weeks the first time, but say, Hey, great, I recognize this and now I have the power to reflect on it and not only did I recognize this the two weeks, but I’m going to write down it took two weeks and I’m going to reflect on all the things that happened and that reflection is something I’ve never done in the past.
(06:41):
So then the next time it happens, maybe it’s 13 days versus 14. That doesn’t seem like a huge win, but the more we can make those incremental improvements, the more we’re also celebrating our success, but the more we’re not having that guilt with it because we know we’re going to get back on track, we’re building that trust in ourselves to keep moving forward through it all. And that’s super key. Think about questions or even things to track as you’re reflecting on those things of how fast did I recover and then what did I do right afterwards? So what did I do right afterwards that might have delayed my recovery, but what did I do right afterwards to also promote improving my recovery from that little deviation? Okay, because the recovery speed really does matter more than the mistake. Ultimately it’s not the one day. If you think about it in the consistency in the grand scheme, it’s not the one day, it’s not the vacation, it’s all the 300 some odd days around it that too often we waste feeling guilty or being off track or not doing what we should or trying to force perfection.
(07:39):
So really think about how fast did I recover and then what did I do right after? It’s sort of reframing what progress is to us to help ourselves track the bounce back, not the breakdown because we’re human guys, we’re never going to be able to avoid mistakes, we’re never going to be able to avoid stress. We’re always going to reach for comfort and the call of our old identity no matter how far away or how long ago we thought we left that identity, it’s going to cause back in our weakest of weak moments and we need to recognize that. Okay? So we just want to try and minimize the delay from getting back on track into the healthy habits we know make us feel best. So one other reflection question that I do want to throw out there because I think this is so eyeopening, is what would you change if you measured your comeback, not your crash?
(08:23):
So if you measure how fast you got back on track, if you reflect on all the things that happened, that is really where the lesson is learned and the more we track that and focus on that versus what we did wrong, the more we give ourselves back power because you did it wrong, it happened, you’re human and it’s going to happen. So sometimes obsessing over this happened, I don’t have the willpower only makes things worse and only makes us feel like we just will never be able to move forward. So really track what you can control and that’s how fast you bounce back from that emotional response. And then tactic number, build your flat tire response plan. We plan for a lot of negative situations in our life, but so often we just accept these patterns. We say this is who we are. We don’t plan for how we can respond to ’em.
(09:09):
So even if you’ve had a stressful day and you’re on your way home from work, start to think about, Hey, what can I do to handle this stress? How can I have fun in a different way? What can I change in how I go home? Because I can already feel myself saying to myself, oh, there’s chips in this cabinet, there’s the ice cream in the freezer. I’m going to go to all these things. And then you start to think, well no, I shouldn’t go to all these things. Okay, the second you start saying, I shouldn’t be doing this, I won’t do this, no, and you feel that white knuckling happening, how can you instantly shift yourself out of that mindset? But think about a checklist you can do and even write out for yourself ahead of time when you have the stressful days or if you know you’re going into a stressful week, Hey, maybe you won’t get stressed out this week, but you know it’s really busy for X, Y, and Z things, which tends to lead to that stress response happening if it is going to happen.
(09:55):
So maybe you put your flat tire response plan as a checklist on your fridge so that when you walk in you can say, Hey, I am going to try and get water first. I’m going to go do my workout first and then I’m going to go from there and see what happens. And the more you have that plan in place and even something you can check off to feel really good about doing the things that you should be doing, the more you’re going to keep yourself in that success mindset and want to do more of those positive things, but really plan ahead. The more we do think about when do these patterns tend to repeat, the more we can prep ourselves for those situations and the more we can catch ourselves and not tell ourselves that something’s inevitable. We do say, well, I’m stressed out, I’m going to go home, I’m going to do these things, and then we even feel ourselves white knuckling against it or pushing back against it, which then only almost even makes it more sort of going to happen, right?
(10:40):
It’s probable. So have that response plan in place. Think about what you’re going to do. Are you going to do five minutes of movement when you first get home? Could you track your next meal? Could you even work in something saying, Hey, I know I really do want these. Let’s see if I can work this in. Because even doing that be like, now I feel like I can have it. You want it even less versus when you know you shouldn’t have the chips, you can’t have the chips and then you have the chips, all of a sudden you have this thing you shouldn’t have and that just makes you feel like you’ve ruined the day versus if they worked in you haven’t ruined anything you plan them in, even if maybe you go to a protein minimum and a calorie cap instead of hitting your normal macro ratios.
(11:15):
But again, think about that checklist and have it someplace you can really see so that it can help you bounce back quicker. Again, we’re trying to track that bounce back, not the breakdown because things are going to happen. We are human and honestly we’re really bad too at winging our recovery. So the more we can have a plan in place, the better off we’re going to be. So the more we can systematize it, the more we can create that environment for it, the more we’re going to make it easier to repeat and the more we’re going to help shift that mindset into that success mindset to keep moving forward. So even a great question to ask yourself is what three actions can help you reset instead of retreat when life throws you off because life is going to get in the way, it’s never going to stop, but what can you control when life throws you that curve ball?
(12:01):
So the last thing I want to leave you with is what if you just kept driving? So often when we have something happen, we don’t pause, we do say instantly I have ruined the day. But have you ever reflected on what that really means? How do a hundred, 200, 300, even a thousand extra calories that one day really ruin your long-term plans? Especially when you consider what usually happens if you don’t just fix that flat and you go slash the other three tires and even like the car on fire, 10,000 calories added up over that time has a much bigger impact than there’s a thousand on that one day and your ability to show yourself your grit and to pull yourself back up and to move forward, honestly, that strength that reveals is going to build a lot more success in the future than even those a thousand calories are going to cost you.
(12:53):
So I want you to think about what would happen if I just kept driving. What would that look like if I had the chips and I even did have the pint of ice cream and I did DoorDash things and the next morning I just got up and went to the gym and got right back on my macros and moved forward like nothing had happened. I fixed that flat and got right back on the road. Because I think so often we really do think about our trip towards results or getting in the car, driving towards results. We’ll even say as being on this racetrack going in circles and if we pause or breakdown, we’re just done. When really it is a road trip. There are pit stops, there are times we have to pull over to the side of the road. We have to stop to get snacks, we have to refill the gas tank. There’s highways and traffic jams, and all these times where we’re going faster or slower, that road trip is a much better analogy. We’re not just going at one speed around this racetrack perfect conditions all the time. So you need to really think about what would it look like to just keep driving after I fix that flat again? You’re going to get that flat tire. Sometimes it’s going to happen, but the faster we move forward, and that’s what all three of these tactics are about, the better off we’re going to be.
*Note: This transcript is autogenerated there may be some unintended errors.