06 - Stop sabotaging your health goals

“I don’t know what happens – I just keep sabotaging myself”

It’s a common issue the women I work with tell me. Things are going well. Changes are made and better habits formed. Health starts improving, weight starts coming off.

Then, some kind of chaos or crisis comes. Stress goes through the roof. Habits lapse.

Or, more confusingly, a milestone is reached. And celebrated. And – suddenly the momentum stops.

This has happened to me. In the lead up to my wedding, I could not get traction for losing weight. You’d think motivation would not be an issue with a wedding coming up! And even after my fatty liver diagnosis, although I reached my goals, it was by no means a straight path that took me there. A compliment on my weight loss could stall me. Starting to help others with theirs could stall me (hello, Imposter Syndrome!). Feeling things were getting too good, that I had more than my share could stall me.

In the past, I would have been completely derailed as we so often are. Now I know that a stall doesn’t have to mean a stop. We can pick up, re-examine what’s happening, start again and get further the next time. Here’s what helped me.

Identify your needs

Identify what you needed when you self-sabotaged. What was going on in your life? What did the lapsed behaviour or food provide you with? We eat the foods that sabotage our health for pleasure, comfort, to self soothe our nervous system, out of boredom or to procrastinate a task we’re anxious about, amongst other reasons. This means that self-sabotage is the perfect opportunity for growth. Instead of wasting time being angry at yourself, get excited that you have the chance to up-level. Ask yourself what the food or behaviour promised you, and explore other ways to meet that need. Be prepared to speak truth to the lie of what the food or behaviour has promised. “The chips promised to soothe me, but I ended up in an MRI machine and they brought compounded stress into my life” was a truth I learnt to face in myself.

Start with 1%

Start at 1% and grow not at 100% and lapse. Motivation is BS. Seriously – we get all fired up and promise ourselves we will do ALL THE THINGS. And then something else catches our attention. We run out of steam. We can’t keep up. The thing is, this isn’t self-sabotage – this is normal, it’s how we’re wired. Motivation is useful for single actions, not for setting up habits for the long haul. So use a burst of motivation to book in your health check-ups that you’ve been procrastinating, to throw out the junk food or to buy yourself decent shoes to exercise in. But to change your eating habits for life – start at 1%. Stick to it. Let it grow. A burst of enthusiasm is great, but know that it is like the ebb and flow of the tide, and don’t be taken out by it when it recedes for a while.

Know your why

Know your why and keep it close. When I’m tired and fried mentally or emotionally, salt and vinegar chips call loudly to me. And my fatty liver and the MRI machine aren’t always front and centre of my mind. But when I remind myself that I want to be around for my daughter as much as possible, and all the things I want to do with my life that are easier when I’m healthy – it’s easier to resist. When I remember how much better I feel now, how I got my vitality back – I’m not prepared to trade that for a chip.

Check your upper limit

Check in with your upper limit. Gay Hendricks wrote about upper limits in his fantastic book The Big Leap. In the simplest terms, it’s the amount of happiness we believe we’re allowed to have. If you can’t work out why you can’t budge past a certain point in your health or self care, consider whether you feel like you can’t outshine others, or have “more than your fair share”. Read this excellent book and see if it resonates for you too.

A place to start

When you know why self-sabotage is happening, you can uproot the cause rather than being baffled by the symptom. A good place to start is by making changes that are so small they slide, undetected, beneath your point of resistance. As you work on your habits, work on your mindset and sense of self worth, and allow all three to expand together. Your health journey can be a personal growth journey.

If you’re ready to grow in your self and your health, book in your free discovery call here to discuss how we can work together.