Ep #375: If You’re Mad At Yourself For Not Making Better Decisions

Hi! Before we get into today’s episode I just want to remind you that registration for this round of The Stop Binge Eating Program will be closing this Thursday, October 9th of 2025 at 12pm ET.

This program is going to be your chance to get everything you need to stop binge eating all in one place. So you can stop searching around, and trying to piece everything together on your own. And, you can stop doing the things that haven’t been working for you, that have been frustrating you, and not try yet another diet that won’t help you to stop binge eating.

This is a comprehensive program where you will get help directly from me, we’ll talk about your specific struggles, and you’ll get personalized strategies. We’ll work together, as a team, so you don’t have to figure this all out on your own.

So if you want my help, if you want to do this together, then come work with me in the program. Go to coachkir.com/group to register now and if you have any questions that aren’t answered on that webpage then you can email them to info@coachkir.com. Don’t wait too long because again, registration is closing this Thursday, October 9th at 12pm ET. Don’t miss this opportunity to change your eating, which will facilitate change with so many other things for you too.

Alright, now let’s get into today’s topic, getting mad at yourself for not making better decisions.

We’re all making multiple eating decisions every day and we have so many choices for what, when, and how much to eat.

Sometimes making those decisions is easy. You’re very clear-headed, you know exactly what you want, you’re in-tune with your body, you’re thinking about your future self and how they’ll feel, and you make decisions that you’re happy with.

But other times, it might not be so easy.

You might feel confused or conflicted about your decision. You might not know what to choose to eat. You might be stressed, or overwhelmed, or feeling some other emotion that makes it hard for you to think clearly or think through your decision. You might be wanting to eat a lot of food. You might be feeling urges to binge, you might be craving several different things, or you might not care about how your future self will feel, or you’re not even thinking about them.

Then after you make your decision, you’re mad at yourself. You’re mad about the decision that you made.

So you call yourself all kinds of mean things, like a failure, lazy, weak, loser, or disgusting.

You’re hard on yourself for making the decision you made.

So then, not only do you feel bad about yourself but, you question your ability to make good decisions.

You start to believe that you’re incapable of making good decisions. Or you just get frustrated at yourself for making bad decisions as often as you do.

And what does that do? Nothing good really. Nothing useful. It’s simply not useful for you to get mad at yourself for the decisions you’ve made.

It just puts you on a path of negativity that will likely beget more negativity, which makes it harder for you to make better decisions.

Like I said a moment ago, it can be hard to make decisions you’ll be happy with when you’re not in a good headspace. It’s not impossible, definitely not impossible but, it will take more effort.

The more down on yourself you are, the harder you’re making it for yourself.

So, if you want to be making better decisions, the first decision I suggest you make is the decision to not be so hard on yourself when you don’t make decisions you’re happy with.

You can be disappointed in the outcome of a decision without making a personal attack on yourself. That is an option.

It could just simply be, “That wasn’t a good decision, wish I hadn’t done that,” rather than, “I’m such an idiot for doing that, why can’t I ever do anything right? Why am I such a failure?”

Notice the difference?

One just acknowledges the decision made and acknowledges that it was a mistake. The other is more emotional and makes it personal and, makes you feel bad about the decision.

So choose the former. Choose to acknowledge it without being so mean to yourself.

You’re already experiencing the physical consequences of the decision you made, you don’t need to add to it by being so mean and being mad at yourself. That’s just going to unnecessarily make you feel worse.

Instead, I recommend you take some time to understand why you made the decision you did. Doing that can help shift you from being mad at yourself to having compassion for yourself, which is going to be so much more useful.

And how you feel about yourself after that decision matters because the feelings you feel will be what drives you to do what you do next.

Being mad at yourself will likely drive negative actions, things you don’t want to be doing, things like giving up, or being too restrictive with your eating, and will also likely drive more decisions you’re not happy with after the fact.

But, being more neutral with yourself, being more understanding, can drive more neutral to positive actions, things that will help you do better, or at least not make things worse, like getting back to your normal eating, learning from what happened so you know what to work on and actually working on it, and it will put you in a headspace that will make it easier for you to make better decisions moving forward, decisions that will move you in the direction you want to be going.

Your emotions have an impact not just on how you’re feeling but on what you do.

And your emotions are determined by your thoughts, including what you think about yourself and how you talk to yourself.

So what you think and say, and how you feel, are going to have a big impact on you.

That’s why it’s so important that you are intentional about your self-talk.

If you made a decision that created an outcome that you’re not happy with, if you chose to eat too much, you chose to keep eating even though you felt full, if you chose to eat when you weren’t hungry too many times in a day, if you ate foods that didn’t feel good in your body, get curious, not mad.

Investigate why you did it. Not as a way to berate or blame yourself but to understand yourself.

Because when you do this, you can see what you need to put more focus and attention on.

Did you do it because you were tired? Okay, so maybe you need to work on getting better sleep, or more sleep, or on taking more breaks during your day, or resting more, or just allowing yourself to be tired rather than eating to try and perk yourself up.

Or did you do it because you were feeling a strong urge and it was really challenging to not give in to it? Okay, so then you’re going to get curious about why the urge got so strong. Were you fighting it all day and got to the point of being tired of fighting? Were you feeling a lot of uncomfortable emotions that you didn’t take the time to work through? Were you being overly restrictive and eating things you didn’t want to be eating so your desire to eat the forbidden foods and your desire to eat something you actually want to eat built up to an urge? When you get curious about the reason, you can find something you can work on to do better.

Notice that getting curious can provide understanding for why you made that decision this time and help you to find solutions and strategies for the future that will help you to make a better decision in the future. You’re not going to get that when you’re just being mad at yourself.

So curiosity, understanding, and compassion. Aim for those after you make a decision that creates an outcome that you’re not happy with.

And I want to stress that understanding and compassion piece.

I know it can be hard when you’ve made many, many decisions that you’re not happy with over months or years.

It can be hard to not get mad and to be more neutral.

But it’s so important that you do.

You can still do everything that I’ve talked about here.

That’s what I do when I think about all my years of bingeing, and not eating the way I wanted to eat, and eating what I regretted eating, and eating way more than I truly wanted to be eating.

I knew what I should be doing, and I wasn’t doing it.

I wanted to be eating a certain way but too often I wasn’t doing it.

And if I wanted to, I could still be so mad at myself for that.

I could look at my body, and be so mad at myself, seeing the result of weight fluctuations, the skin that isn’t as tight as it could have been, the stretch marks, the skin ripples, all due to me losing weight and bingeing it back.

But I’m not, because I choose not to be.

I choose to understand that I didn’t know everything. I didn’t know how to stop bingeing the time. I didn’t know how to do better. I didn’t know why I was doing what I was doing. I didn’t know so many things.

When I wasn’t in a good mental space, I didn’t always know how to get out of it. I didn’t know how to get myself to choose other things over choosing food.

I didn’t know about thought work, I didn’t have so much of the knowledge and strategies I have now.

And I’m not going to be mad at myself for not knowing what I didn’t know, and for not even knowing how to learn what I needed to know.

I tried, I really did, but I wasn’t trying the right things, and sometimes my best wasn’t good enough, and I’m not going to be mad at myself for that.

Do the same for yourself.

Don’t be mad at yourself for not knowing what you didn’t know.

Or for doing what seemed like the best option for you at the time.

We don’t overly restrict our food and eat to feel better emotionally just to sabotage ourselves. We do it because we’re trying to help ourselves. It really does seem like the best option in the moment.

And we can have some understanding for ourselves about that.

Especially when we have so much pressure to be thin, and we’ve only been taught that not allowing certain foods is the way to lose weight. We think we’re doing the right thing, then get mad at ourselves when it doesn’t work. It’s not us, it’s the method.

Or when we haven’t been taught how to experience discomfort, we don’t know what else to do but eat when we feel uncomfortable. We’re just doing what we know to do, especially when distracting ourselves isn’t working.

Or when we haven’t been taught how our self-talk affects us, or how to set achievable goals, or how to get motivated, or how to get unstuck.

It was very likely that you were doing your best to help yourself in that moment, even if it ended up not helping in the end.

And it’s also likely that even though you told yourself, “you know better,” you actually didn’t. Yes, maybe you knew that it wasn’t going to turn out good in the end but, you didn’t know how to do better. Don’t be mad at yourself for not knowing how.

So, please, don’t be mad at yourself for decisions you’ve made. Even if there have been a lot of them. There is a reason why you made those decisions and it’s likely that you thought they were the right decision at the time. Explore why you did, without judgement.

Then, you can get to work on the reason.

And, if you think you need more help with understanding, or with new strategies and solutions, then come join me in the Stop Binge Eating Program where I can help you personally.

I wish I had someone back in the day who could have pointed out the mistakes I was making, that I didn’t even realize were mistakes because I thought I was helping myself. Who could have shown me what I needed to do that I wasn’t doing. Who could have taught me how to do what I knew to do. That’s why I strive to be that person for you now.

So if you want that, go to coachkir.com/group to join the program and if you have any questions, email them to info@coachkir.com.

Alright, so, undesirable outcomes from your decisions will happen. Being mad at yourself doesn’t have to happen too. Let’s work on being mad less and understanding and being compassionate more. Bye bye.