How to NOT give up on your goals
How to NOT give up on your goals
Common pitfalls we fall into
Hello lovely people,
Happy Sunday. How is your January going? How are your goals coming along?
Research shows that most people have already given up on their New Year goals by now. And whilst other people might be able to “afford it”, we can’t. Having PCOS means that we are somehow in a position where we HAVE TO work on our eating and exercise habits if we want to live a better life.
Because our quality of life depends on us having good habits, let’s look at why we give up on our goals.
Why do we give up?
All-or-nothing thinking
Emotional Eating
Food as a reward
Who is in charge?
I want to introduce a concept which has helped me tremendously: The Chimp paradox. This is the work of Professor Steve Peters, who simplifies the brain structure into three different brains: The Human, The Computer and The Chimp.
💻 The Computer = represents our Parietal brain and holds all the beliefs about ourselves - our identity. It also holds all our automatic behaviours and habits. The Human and the Chimp store information here as a quick reference and read from it.
🧔🏼♀️ The Human - represents our Frontal brain and holds our true self. It’s logical and fact-based. Its main agenda is self-fulfilment.
🐒 The Chimp represents the Limbic brain, and our emotional machine thinks independently from us. Its main agenda is survival.
Why is this relevant?
This is extremely relevant because The Chimp will try to hijack your attempts to change. The Chimp is a highly emotional part of us, which has strong drives for eating, sex, power, and safety. Everything that will keep us safe to ensure the next generation. For example, if we try to eat less and change our eating habits, The Chimp will interpret that as threatening survival. Since it’s driven by food, it will start scanning the environment for eating opportunities and drive you to do so.
The golden rule is whenever you have feelings, thoughts or behaviours that you don’t want or welcome, you are being hijacked by your Chimp.
What we truly want is to be driven by The Human. The human is the one who sets the new goals in the first place. It’s rational and fact-driven. Your true self.
Managing your Chimp is one of the most important things you can do in life to ensure success.
I would strongly recommend the books of Professor Steve Peters. If you are not much of a reader, he has two great interviews here and here.
So let’s see how the Chimp hijacks us:
All-or-nothing thinking
All-or-nothing thinking is experienced into categories of either “black or white” and “right or wrong.” All-or-nothing thinking is prevalent in perfectionists. You might fall into this thinking if you often use “always,” “never,” “should,” and “shouldn’t” to describe your actions.
Guess who is to blame?
The Chimp thinks in black-and-white terms, and it’s very judgemental. “I ate three cookies today; I might as well write it off and start on Monday. I knew I wouldn’t make it". Because it doesn’t like shades of grey, it makes decisions about ourselves and our actions in a split second. Couple this with believing that “I am not disciplined enough”; it’s a disaster for giving up on our goals.
The solution
When we give into this type of thinking, it means that the Chimp has ruled our day. However, this is natural! Our brains constantly scan our environment for cues (as discussed previously) to know what to do next. The bad news is that these cues go first to the Chimp and then to The Human. The Chimp takes a situation, interprets and offers The Human an action. This is often either part of our habits (what we have done in the past) or what the Chimp needs (its drivers).
The good news is that The Human decides. If it agrees with the Chimp, everyone is happy. If there is disagreement, the Chimp will kick a fuss to get what he wants. Remember that the Chimp is also reading The Computer. This is why what the Chimp reacts to depends on your past experiences and beliefs.
How do you manage The Chimp?
Mindfulness. (I know, I know, anything easier?). Working with our minds is not an easy endeavour. However, looking at your brain as you look at your muscles when working out, it’s helpful. Practising mindfulness means catching when our Chimp is trying to run our day, managing it, and allowing The Human to make the decisions.
Allow the Chimp to think things. Remember, the Chimp is irrational, so let it express its feelings (“Let’s eat that cookie, you know you want it, you know you have a sweet tooth, you know you won’t resist it”). Most Chimps will taken less than 10 min to express fears and emotions, then they will go silent and listen. Trying to fight it means it will come back strong as you have not met their needs.
However, when it comes to eating, we must fulfil that need. This is when you need to ask The Human: hey, the chimp is throwing a fuss about eating this cookie, are we really hungry?. If the answer is yes, you need to fulfil that need by choosing to eat something more in line with your identity.
Emotional Eating
Emotional Eating is most likely one of the strongest forces for letting go of our goals. We usually set goals when we are relaxed, motivated and have the space to think. Two weeks in and deadlines pile up at work, you need to finish an assignment and your partner is giving you a hard time. This is when we will be looking for comfort. In a split second, we will munch on our favourite food and feel a bit better.
Why does it happen?
The Computer is always storing information. If in the past we had Emotion (Cue) → Get comfort (Motivation) → Eat (Action) → Feel better (Reward), our brain registers it as a proven way of dealing with your emotions. Couple this with the emotional nature of The Chimp; our emotions can run the show.
This coping mechanism was probably instilled in us from a very young age. You often see parents giving crying children something to eat. This creates a powerful association between discomfort and food. I am feeling unease, I can eat and feel better.
What do we do about it?
Being aware of it is the most important rule. Without awareness and mindfulness, we are running on auto-pilot and being led by The Chimp. We must learn to see our emotions beyond stress. As you can see in the diagram below, our emotions are vast; understanding them means you can create another response.
Let’s see an example:
I feel stressed (cue) → let me eat something (motivation) → eating (action) → feeling better (reward)
Let’s rewrite it:
I am feeling a bit insecure about this project (cue)→ let me get some confidence (motivation) → message a colleague who you trust (action)→ get a boost of confidence (reward)
It’s easy to bundle all our emotions under one umbrella, “stress” or “tired”, but digging a bit deeper means you can unveil what goes on and choose different responses than your usual eating one.
Give it a try; it’s pretty powerful.
Food as reward
Lastly, food as a reward works very similarly to emotional eating. I’ve finished work (cue) → I want to feel rewarded (motivation) → Eating (action) → I feel rewarded (Reward).
This association between reward and food was also instilled in us from a very young age: if you are good, you will get ice cream. If you finish your veggies, you can get dessert. These early behaviours store powerful connections in our Computer. When you beat yourself up for not going through with your planned behaviours, please remember that some automatic behaviours might have existed for 20 years. It will take time to undo them.
Food is also a powerful reward. First and foremost, the Chimp loves it, and we are naturally driven and motivated by food. Secondly, food has the ability to give us a lot of pleasure due to the sensory experience of chewing and the release of happiness hormones once we are eating. Nature had to make sure we love eating to keep the species safe.
What do we do about it?
You probably know by now that habit change is about changing the response to a cue. We can’t get away from the fact that our brain loves rewards. The secret is in being aware that a cue is happening (finishing a task, finishing cleaning the house, finishing a week of work) and deciding to change the action so we can get the same reward.
Let’s look at an example:
It’s Friday evening, and I just finished work (cue) →. I want to relax (motivation) →. I open a bottle of wine (action) →. My week has been closed, and the weekend can start (reward).
Let’s rewrite it:
It’s Friday evening and just finished work (cue) → I want to relax (motivation) → I pack my things and head out for a walk → I feel like my week has been closed and the weekend can start (reward).
This won’t be easy. Remember, food is a powerful driver, and this behaviour has been instilled for years. However, every time you perform another action to the same cue, The Computer stores it. You are forming new connections.
Conclusions
You have probably got it by now. We run on auto-pilot most of the time. Being aware of what is triggering your actions (your cue) and re-writing the script it’s the only way to change your behaviours and achieve your new identity.
In the following newsletter, we will discuss how to keep track of these behaviours and become aware of them. It will be the last in this series before we go back to more PCOS-related newsletters.
See you next Sunday,
Francesca