Ep #334: Your Compelling Reason to Stop Binge Eating

Hi! Let’s talk about your compelling reason for why you want to stop binge eating.

This reason is an important part of your motivation to keep doing the work, to not quit on yourself, and to keep trying.

It is your motive to progress.

It’s your reason why not doing this work and not putting your all into it just isn’t an option for you.

If you don’t have a reason for doing the work to stop binge eating that is compelling for you, that is important for you, then it will make it so easy for you to say it doesn’t matter, or there’s no point, or you don’t care.

Because if you don’t have a compelling reason, then it really won’t matter enough to you do put in the effort it requires.

Stopping binge eating does require effort. You are changing yourself, your mindset, how you think, how you behave, your relationship with yourself, your relationship with food, and if changing these things were easy then none of us would ever struggle with them or feel stuck.

And in order for use to do things that aren’t easy, that require effort, we have to have a reason to do it that’s important to us and that is compelling.

Think about anything you do that isn’t easy or requires effort. Why do you do it? I bet you have a really good reason to do it that’s important to you to.

You need the same thing to help motivate you to keep doing the work and to put in the time you need to put in to stop binge eating.

And that includes the time to listen to this podcast and learn, the time to journal and learn about yourself, the time to reflect on your previous binges to understand them, and the effort it takes to apply what you learn and to be mindful and aware of yourself, and to make thoughtful decisions and to manage your thinking and emotions.

Now, if you hear that list and you’re like, “that sounds like so much, I just don’t want to do it,” and you don’t have a compelling reason to do it, then you won’t.

But, if you hear that list and think it sounds like so much and you don’t want to do it but, you have a really compelling reason to do it, then you’ll do it, even though you don’t want to.

That compelling reason is one piece of what will help you to do what you don’t feel like doing or do what you’re telling yourself you don’t want to do.

Because the truth is, if stopping binge eating is important to you, and your reason why is compelling, then it will help you to see that you really do want to do all that stuff because doing that stuff is what will get you to where you ultimately want to be.

You’re not just going to stop binge eating easily overnight without doing anything, you’re going to need to put in attention, time, and effort to make it happen.

If you have a compelling reason, it will give you a motive to do it.

And it will help you to override your thoughts about not wanting to do it.

You’ll see why you really do.

Now, the word, “compelling” is really important here.

Sometimes people have a “why”, they have a reason, but, it doesn’t really light them up. It falls a little flat.

One example I hear often is when people say they want to do it for their health.

That reason is so vague and it doesn’t really elicit emotion.

And it needs to.

Your behaviors, what you do, is going to be driven by your emotions.

So if you’re feeling apathetic, or indifferent, or just kinda neutral about why you want to stop binge eating, it’s not really going to drive you to take the action you need to take when you don’t feel like it or when you don’t really want to.

Those feelings aren’t going to motivate you to do the hard effortful thing.

So your reason needs to cause you to feel a stronger emotion that will drive you into action.

And if you’re not feeling a strong, motivating emotion when you think about your reason, then it would be helpful to dig into it and get below the surface.

Let’s use “for your health” as an example.

What exactly about your health are you concerned about? And why are you concerned about that? How will it affect you and your life? Why is that aspect of your health important to you?

When people really dig into this one, they start talking about their quality of life, what they’ll be able to do and not do, how they’ll feel, and what they’ll be able to experience and not experience in their life.

It starts to become more specific and more personal and they really start to feel stronger emotions as they think about it. And those emotions drive them into action so they can avoid what they don’t want and so they can get what they do.

Another example is when people say they’ll feel so much better.

Get more specific. What specific feeling swill you feel? What won’t you feel? And, take it to the next step and ask yourself how that will impact your life.

Make it personal. See the actual impact. Yes we all want to feel better, yes we want good health but, what does that personally mean for you?

The more specific and personal, the more motivating emotions you’ll bring up for yourself.

Now, what also sometimes come up for people as they’re doing this exercise is their lack of belief and their doubt in themselves.

As they think about their desirable future that doesn’t include binge eating, and as they think about how binge eating affects them negatively now, they actually start to feel more negative because they don’t believe they can have that future and they believe they will be stuck in the negative effects and won’t be able to get out.

Yes the idea of the future sounds great, yes they really want it, but they don’t think it’s possible for them.

And when that doubt creeps in, the compelling reason isn’t so compelling anymore.

Their doubt is taking away them motivation because if they don’t think they can actually get there then they’ll think there is no point in trying.

It’s like if you have great reasons to date and to find a partner but, you don’t believe you’ll actually find one, then you won’t put in any effort to date and try to find a partner.

Your reasons alone may be compelling but, that’s only one piece of the motivation.

The other is your belief in yourself. It’s believing you can actually get what you want.

It’s important to know that because, sometimes people think their reasons aren’t compelling enough but really the problem is that they don’t have enough belief in themselves.

So if you’re questioning whether or not your reasons are compelling enough, put your belief about whether or not you can get what you want aside and ask yourself how important your reasons are to you on a scale of 1-10. If they’re a 10, they’re important enough. If they’re less, either you need to dig a little deeper and get more specific and personal or, you’re not entirely putting your belief in yourself aside and you’re letting that cloud the compellingness of your reasons.

Something else that causes people to think their reasons aren’t compelling enough is when their reasons don’t stop them from bingeing.

They’re feeling the urge, they’re telling themselves these reasons but, the reasons don’t stop them from bingeing.

But here’s the thing. These compelling reasons that I’m talking about today aren’t supposed to stop you from bingeing. That’s not it’s purpose.

I’ve heard so many people say that they must not want to stop bad enough if they keep bingeing.

But that’s not true.

You can want to stop binge eating extremely badly and when you feel that urge to binge, your reasons why you don’t want to stop binge eating don’t really matter that much.

Outside of the moment when you’re feeling an urge they are so important but when you’re feeling that urge, they aren’t.

In that moment, all that’s important is eating food.

What’s important is escaping yourself, escaping how you feel, or freely eating what you want.

Now, of course the intensity of the urge you’re feeling matters.

If your urge isn’t that strong, it’s possible you could stop yourself from bingeing by telling yourself these reasons.

And if your urge isn’t super strong, it’s possible you could stop yourself from bingeing by telling yourself what the immediate consequences of bingeing would be for you. You could shift from bingeing being desirable to undesirable by telling yourself the whole story of the binge. So not just the good, fun, enjoyable part but also the terrible awful part at the end.

But, when the urge is strong, that kind of logic might not work. You’re not in a logical headspace. You can’t logic yourself out of bingeing.

And with those kinds of urges, the really strong ones, although it’s not impossible to stop yourself from bingeing, it’s very challenging.

And if you feel very strong urges that stop you from using logic, the solution for those is prevention.

With those strong urges, you need to understand why those urges feel so strong and get to the cause of those very strong urges and work on the cause.

When you work on the cause of the urges, it will decrease the intensity of your urges and decrease the frequency of them.

It’s like getting to the cause of physical pain you feel in your body and working on that instead of just trying to ignore it or taking pain relievers without actually healing what’s going on inside. You’ll likely just keep feeling the pain if you don’t work on the cause of it.

You’ll likely keep feeling strong urges to binge if you don’t work on the cause of your urges.

And when it really comes down to it, the cause is either being overly restrictive with your eating or being unwilling to feel your emotions and wanting to escape yourself.

And as you do the work on those causes, you’ll uncover your reasons why you restrict too much and why you aren’t willing to be present with your emotions and present with yourself and you’ll work on those reasons why.

So just know that if these compelling reasons we’re talking about today don’t stop you from bingeing it doesn’t mean your reasons aren’t compelling and important enough.

You’ll know if your reasons are compelling and important enough if your reasons incite motivation for you.

And remember, believing in yourself and believing you can do it is also a factor when it comes to feeling motivated so make sure you check that as well.

Alright, so, make sure you know what your reason is for why you want to stop binge eating and make your reason something that is specific and personal. The more specific and personal the more it will motivate you and it will be key in you showing up for yourself, staying committed, and doing the work.

And, don’t just know what your reason is, tell it to yourself every day, multiple times a day. If you’re not thinking about it, it’s not going to do anything for you. But it will do something for you, it will create the motivation, when it is in the forefront of your mind. So put it there by telling it to yourself.

Alright, that is all I have for you today, have a wonderful week and I’ll talk to you next time. Bye bye.