Ep #14: Doing Hard Things

Hi there! Happy November! Can you believe there’s only two months left in 2018? And the holiday season is almost here? So exciting.

What may not be exciting though is the thought of how hard the holidays can be.

So much temptation everywhere and so many thoughts about just giving up on trying to change until the beginning of the year. I see that happen all the time, and I’ve done it myself where you just go balls to the walls in December and eat all the foods without any regard for yourself and how you feel when you do and just get it all in because you’re starting fresh on January 1. Or this could even be a thought you have every week, that you’re just going to wait until Monday.

Weekends can be hard and the holidays can be hard. So why not just not try right now and try later instead.

Because changing yourself and your behaviors can be hard.

Learning to allow urges instead of reacting to them can be hard.

Not binge eating can be hard.

I’d say the most common reason why people don’t change, other than just not wanting to, is because it’s hard to. They attempt, it’s too hard, and they give up. Or maybe they don’t even bother trying because they just assume it will be hard.

So they just do what comes easily instead.

It’s easier to just binge.

You don’t have to put in any effort, you just do it.

And not bingeing is too hard so you’ll wait for tomorrow to do the hard stuff. As if it will be any different then. As if it will be any easier or you’ll want to do the hard thing tomorrow more than you want to do it today.

If you’ve used that reason to binge many times, then you know it’s not going to be any easier the next time the urge comes around.

We think that giving in to the urges is the easy way out, but is it really?

How easy is it to keep doing something you don’t want to be doing?

How easy is it to constantly want something that you don’t have? To want to be free from binge eating, and you’re not?

Not very easy.

It’s not easy to wish every day that things were different while nothing changes.

So what’s harder, working on not giving in to urges to binge, or continuing to binge?

Bingeing is an easy way to get that instant relief from your urge, but what happens after that? You’re back in your head and all your thoughts about how you so badly want to never do it again and about regretting doing it and how you swear you’ll not do it again are all swirling around in there.

So you gotta take action. Now. Otherwise, you’ll just keep on desperately wanting, while getting upset because you’re not doing what you want, and you’re doing exactly what you don’t want.

So when you find yourself saying, “It’s easier to just give in,” ask yourself, “Is it really?”

Yes it takes work to stop binge eating. It’s not always easy and you have to put in effort. But the amount of time you can spend working on changing your life can be tiny compared to the amount of time you’ve spent, and could continue spending, on hating what you’re doing to yourself.

There’s no reason why you should struggle any longer.

It’s time to do the hard things.

You can do the hard things.

But don’t just take my word for it. I know you can, I 100% believe in you, but you need to believe that you can do hard things if you’re going to actually do them.

I have no doubt that you’ve conquered hard things before and you will continue to conquer them again and again. Take a moment to think about something that was SO hard for you to do and you did it. Maybe it was school, or going through a break up or divorce, or stopping smoking or drinking. This is just one more hard thing that you’re going to do.

“It’s hard” should never be the reason why you don’t do something. That hard work will for sure be worth it in the end. It’s the work that is the hardest that is the most rewarding. So get yourself that big reward that comes when your urge subsides and you don’t binge rather than that unrewarding reward that you get from bingeing.

Bingeing is never truly rewarding.

When it comes time to do something hard, to allow urges instead of feeding them, be deliberate about what you’re going to think about when you’re doing it.

If when you feel an urge you’re thinking, “Not giving in right now is so hard!” then it’s going to be way more difficult to not binge than if you’re thinking, “Not giving in is what needs to be done and I’m going to do it.” Notice how different it feels to think each of those.

Do you want to add to the struggle or bring on some determination? It’s up to you.

A dear songwriter friend of mine, Christopher Dallman, has a lyric in one of his songs that I absolutely love that says, “Learning to live is so simple but simple ain’t easy and easy ain’t worth your time.” It’s so true, that the answers to life’s problems are so simple, the solutions for stopping binge eating are simple, but executing them is not easy. The things advertised as easy, are usually not long-term solutions.They may work for a little while, but aren’t sustainable. They’re band-aids and if you want to make real, positive, permanent changes in your life, you gotta do that hard stuff. You gotta work through your muck instead of just pushing it aside for a little while.

Choose to do what’s hard and keep going. Stop stopping yourself as soon as you start feeling doubt, or uncomfortable, or fear.

And remember, both working on not binge eating and binge eating are hard. So choose your hard.

And if you’re feeling that determination to get this done already and are ready to do the hard things and are considering coaching with me, this really is a fantastic time to do it. Like I said in the beginning of this episode, this can be one of the hardest times of the year because of all the holiday temptation and because the end of the year is coming, which makes it so easy to jut give up until the first of the year. But no! Don’t give up now and perpetuate the problem and possibly make it worse. Together we can work through the difficulties and you can have your most successful holiday season since you started binge eating and go into the new year feeling better than you have in a long time. So if you’re down and ready to go, sign up for a free mini session at coachkir.com/mini so you can get some free coaching to see what it’s like and I can tell you about my about my current program offering only if you’re interested in it, and you can ask any questions you may have.

Now go have a hard and determined week so you can come out on the other side a stronger person and a person who doesn’t shy away from doing hard things. Talk to you next time, bye bye