About a week or so ago, I had someone ask me an extremely thought provoking, important questions…”why do people sabotage their diets” (or general life goals)? I sent out an email to a few different clients I work with and here are two I wanted to share which came back to me…similar in their reasons of sabotage:
Both of these clients have had huge success in their health goals (and are continuing to have success)…but occasionally trip up along the journey, causing each of them enormous frustration. Frustrations I know they wish never creeped in.
Email #1
“There are so many reasons sabotage happens. A child, a spouse, a co-worker hurts your feelings and you go for that comfort food or alcohol because your sad, you know you shouldn’t, but you do. You are doing really well, you have the mindset, your’e kicking @$!! at the gym, your’e nailing all of your food choices, but then you hit a wall because you are exhausted and that’s because you are over committing to everything, kids, job, exercise, social life, volunteering, caring for family, cleaning, gardening, shopping, etc etc and during all of that you forgot to feed your soul, so you feed it the worst way possible by grabbing that glass of wine, eating that donut at the office because it was just to much work to make that plant smoothie before you left. You know this is a bad idea, and a bad choice but you are so tired, you don’t care. Then the end of the sabotage cycle is the worst, because getting back on track is harder than all the above. You end up mad at yourself and mad at your choices, and mad at the larger road ahead of you now.
So how does one avoid the disastrous route of sabotage and stay true to yourself? I still don’t have that answer, figuring out why one lets it happen i guess is the biggest key. I think it’s a very personal journey for each person, but the one thing I know for sure is that you have to stay absolutely honest and true to yourself to get there.
It’s hard to stay true to yourself, but it’s an absolute must to accomplish my goals. I’m 100% sure of that. ”
Email #2
“I was so exhausted taking care of everyone else by the time it came to me I was too tired to think about making something healthy. I did poor planning on my meal preps and when the time came even though I had all the ingredients to make a nice salad. I still chose the convenient and easy route.
My ah ha moment(s): every time I lost my weight there was a goal in mind (wedding-white dress, honeymoon bikini, 1st baby, 2nd baby-didn’t want to add pregnancy lbs to existing weight) now this time around is taking a bit longer (no life changing events) but I haven’t given up. I just lost my groove. I like regiment, I like routine, I like order…and life isn’t always a straight arrow.”
I received a few more written and verbal reasons of why others thought they sabotaged their plans…and interestingly although all of these folks are wildly different…the common thread is lack of rest, listening to their hearts, their true goals and diminishing self care. Everyone got caught up in the unraveling of their own plans at the onset of taking on too much for others. The “taking care of” happened with family, friends, charities, work; you name it, it got in the way. The more involved they got in others, the more tired and imbalanced they became…and along came “sabotage”…
It’s those who have a goal, a TRUE deeply rooted value of their intentions who rarely go off track. This value is so deep that it embodies the foundation of where their roots grow from.
If you find this rings true to you and your nutrition, lifestyle, health plans take a back seat from time to time, maybe more often than you’d like to see…take a moment and be truthful with yourself. Ask if you are forgetting or compromising your deepest values for someone or something else…and if doing this actually hurts your own health. A big question, worthy of serious thought about your own sabotaging history. Your history doesn’t have to be your future…
