Ep #55: Consistency and The Compound Effect

Hi! Guess what. It’s The Stop Binge Eating Podcast’s one year anniversary!!! Happy one year to me!

This episode is being released on August 20^th, 2019 and my first three episodes were released on August 21^st2018.

Every week, for an entire year, I have been giving you episodes of stop binge eating goodness and I have not missed one week.

I gotta be honest with you, I’m pretty freakin’ proud of myself.

I had no doubt I would do it, I fully believed that I would be able to be consistent. I consider myself a dedicated person.

But seeing myself here is still pretty freakin’ awesome.

Now, I have 55 episodes for you all. 55 nuggets of information to help you stop binge eating and change your life for the better.

It all started with one episode, and now here we are with 55.

As I thought about how awesome this is, and how much I love that I have shared all this knowledge with you and how so many of you have made such amazing changes within yourselves because of it, I started thinking about how perfect it would be to use this episode to talk about the compound effect and the importance of consistency.

These were two of the things that allowed me to get here and that allowed for these 55 episodes to be made.

It’s what allowed for you to have all the knowledge and insight that you now have. And it also allowed for us to create the relationship we now have.

Because if I had just stopped at episode 10, as some podcasters do, or if I had never even started, as way too many people have done, then all of you, and I, would not be where we are today.

But I did start, and didn’t stop, and you and I are both changed people.

I’ve learned so much doing all of these. I’ve grown as a person doing all these. And I hope you can say the same for yourself as a listener.

So let’s take a look at what got us here.

The compound effect. What this is, is the effect of all the little decisions you make. It’s the effect of the compounding of all your decisions.

You’ve seen how this effect has affected this podcast, but how is the compound effect affecting your binge eating?

It could be affecting it positively or negatively.

Everyday you’re making eating decisions, multiple times a day.

How are those decisions adding up? What effect are you creating with those decisions? What are you compounding?

Most of you are making too many decisions that give you instant gratification. You get to feel better right then and there and the effect of all those decisions is that you become someone who is really good at making impulsive, short-term pleasure decisions.

In doing this, you miss out on the long-term, delayed gratification you get from holding off on the pleasure and good feelings.

And then what happens?

You miss out on achieving your goal sooner and miss out on building the skill of not responding to urges and get better at reacting to urges.

You get better at bingeing.

All those little decisions you make may not seem like a big deal at the time. But they really are when we look at the big picture.

Imagine 30 days of giving in to urges everyday and 30 days of not giving in to urges every day. Or what about 15 out of 30 days of either.

It’s going to make a difference, right?

Each day my not seem like such a big deal, and that’s why it’s so easy for us to put it off until tomorrow, or Monday, or whatever day you choose. But if you keep saying tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow, then before you know it another month or year has gone by and zero progress has been made.

So are you aware of the decisions you’re making and the impact they will have? Do you see what you’re doing?

Are you paying attention to them or disregarding them and forgetting them? Are you brushing them off like they were n’t a big deal? Are you also believing that your decisions aren’t really decisions?

Each bite you eat, each food you buy, when you stop eating, those are all your decisions you’re making.

The effect that comes from you making these seemingly insignificant decisions each time you do compounds into a result.

It may seem insignificant to eat a few extra bites. But do it every day and the result may no be so insignificant.

It may seem insignificant to buy those cookies each time you to grocery shopping but the result of doing that over and over may not be so insignificant.

Let’s look at exercise as an example.

If you lift weights 3 times a week for a year, you’re going to be significantly stronger than you were at the start of the year.

If you don’t lift any weights for a year then you’re going to be the same strength.

If you lift once in a while with no real consistency for a year, you’re for sure not going to be as strong as you would have been had you done 3 times a week every week.

Or look at the everyday things you don’t even think about. What would happen if you didn’t brush your teeth for a day? Maybe nothing crazy. But don’t do it for a year? Don’t even come near me with those chompers!

You don’t have to be perfect. You don’t have to do things perfectly in order to see your desired results, but if you want a specific goal, you have to make decisions that will move you toward it, put in a certain amount of effort, and be consistent with it.

If you want healthy teeth and gums, you gotta be consistent with your brushing. If you want to be physically stronger, you have to be consistent with your lifting. If you want to be better at not binge eating, you have to be consistent with not giving in to urges.

Can you stop binge eating by not giving in to only 1 out of 5 urges? Of course you can, but it’s going to take way longer than if you don’t give in to 4 out of 5, or 5 out of 5!

One time you don’t give in to an urge may not seem like it matters because you’re focusing on all the times you did give in. But do it over and over and you’re building a skill. Skills need to be built and they’re built through consistency and repetition.

I know that it’s hard to see the bigger picture sometimes. You want instant pay off. You want to see the change now. And you may not see anything.

The scale may not go down because you chose to not binge one day.

You may not feel noticeablybetter after not bingeing one day.

You will probably still feel urges to binge after not giving in to one.

Or then there’s the other side.

The scale may not go up after you binged one day. It can happen.

You may not feel so terrible after one binge.

But so what to all of it! So what if that one time didn’t give you what you wanted or didn’t give you a terrible result.

Do you know what will happen if you keep doing it? I think you do, but you’re not considering it.

One binge may not be the end of the world, but what happens when you have one binge every week?

You’ll see the effects of that.

Or what will happen if you don’t give in to that urge to binge every day for a week?

You’ll see the effects of that.

The question is, can you wait for it?

We all want to reach our goals like yesterday. The trap that we fall into though is when we don’t get it tomorrow, so we don’t try as hard.

Say you want to lose 5 pounds before you go on a vacation in two weeks. But then you binge and there’s no way you can make 5 pounds happen. So you just give up and never lose those 5 pounds, or any pounds.

So you’re stuck with it, instead of just getting back to work and losing what you can. If you keep making decisions that will move you in the direction to lose 5 lbs then you will eventually lose 5 lbs. How long will it take? Depends on how consistent you are with your eating.

Just know that each decision will compound into weight loss, weight gain, or weight maintenance.

Each decision you make when it comes to your feelings and urges will compound into stopping your binge eating, making it worse, or keeping it the same.

The compound effect is always at play. You’re either compounding your binge eating habit or the other eating habits you want.

This is how huge change is created in our lives.

It’s small wins collected over time.

If you want the results you have to work for it. You have to do it and repeat it and be consistent.

You have to have the big picture in mind and know what you’re working toward.

Know who you’re going to become and what impact it will have on your life if you are consistent in your decision making.

The impact that each little decision I have made regarding my podcast has resulted in me being able to help more women stop bingeing than I ever had before. I’ve been able to reach more of you and share more with you and I get to dedicate all my work time to helping you all instead of just doing it when I have time.

I think about that stuff when I’m deciding to prep a podcast, or when it comes time to record and edit, and all the other things that go into it. It would be so easy to just put it off and not do it, it wouldn’t really matter in the short term. But the long-term effect of me continually not taking action would add up and create a result I don’t want. I want to be there for you and for me.

Too often when we’re making our little decisions, we get focused on what we’re going to miss out on. Right now, I’m missing out on relaxing and pleasurable activities. Would I rather be watching tv or outside walking around or hanging out with a friend? For sure I would, but I’m honestly not even thinking about all that stuff.

I’m thinking about what I will gain from doing this, not what I’m losing.

Doing this podcast, I have already gained more integrity with myself, confidence in my ability to produce them, a sense of accomplishment by seeing that I did one every week for entire year, and I also get to see the results you all are getting from having them available. I gain the satisfaction of knowing I’m doing something to help you as well.

If I were to stop right now and go do something easier or more pleasurable then I would gain short term pleasure but lose all I would get from doing this work. Let’s be real here. If I give myself permission to choose short term pleasure over the long-term pleasure I would get from doing my work one time, I’m opening up the door to doing it again. If I was able to be okay with it this time, I might be okay with it next time, and the next time. Then my compounding starts moving in the wrong direction and I start building the effect of being a person who doesn’t do their work.

So when you’re making your decision to give in to a binge urge or not, what will you gain with each decision?

What will you gain from giving in? A moment of relief and pleasure and getting better at giving in to urges.

What will you gain from not giving in? A step closer to stopping binge eating, getting better at not giving in to urges, and repeat this over and over and you will get the impact that not bingeing will ultimately have on your life.

Momentum needs to be started and continued and it’s consistency that is going to keep it going toward your goal and making progress.

Inconsistency will keep you starting and stopping. It’s going to take so much longer to get where you need to go and it takes more effort because you have to keep starting the momentum over again.

It’s the difference between driving a stick shift on a highway at one speed with no stops vs in traffic on the surface streets. You’ll get there on the surface streets, but how long will it take and how much more effort will it take to keep doing all that shifting?

When I have a client, and they are successful in changing their eating habits into being exactly what they want them to be, the compound effect and consistency are two important things that got them there. It was the effect of all their decisions they made.

They decided to listen to me on the podcast or read my free download.

They decided to sign up for a mini session.

They decided to actually show up for the mini session and talk to me.

They decided to invest in themselves and sign up to work with me.

They decided to show up for all of their sessions.

They decided to do the work they need to do in between sessions.

It’s all of these decisions, and more, especially in the “doing the work in between sessions” part, that took them from someone who binges to someone who doesn’t.

And it was their consistency in believing in themselves and showing up for themselves and doing what would benefit them long-term that got them there.

If they make a decision to not do even one of these things, then their progress will be stalled. The momentum will be stopped. They will make it harder for themselves in the long-run.

If I took a week off from making a podcast episode for you, then it would make it harder for me because I’d stop the momentum and set me up to possibly do it again.

I never allow myself to do that. There has not been one week in the last year that I slacked off. If I go out of town or take a vacation, I do an extra episode before I go. I’m actually going on vacation in a couple months and am already getting myself ahead. I’m preparing this one a week before I normally would so I don’t come back from vacation and have to play catch up.

Each time you slack, you’re compounding your slacking. You’re becoming better at slacking.

Each time you give in to urges, you’re getting better at giving in to urges.

You’re always getting better at something, why not get better at the thing you actually want to get better at??

It’s not always easy, especially in the beginning it’s going to be challenging and hard. But you’re going to do it anyway because of what it will build up to be.

I remember a friend of mine telling me how he would look at empty lots where they’re going to build a building and all that’s there is a big hole with some construction equipment down at the bottom and he’d feel so overwhelmed just looking at it. He’s not a construction worker, just a guy. But just thinking about how long it’s going to take and how much they need to do and they haven’t even started, it’s so much.

We think that way too about our big goals, binge eating included. There’s so much to do and we’re at square one. The ultimate goal is so far away.

Sometimes what you’re really wanting – freedom around food, weight loss, confidence, feeling better physically, being healthier – all that stuff is too far that it seems like one binge won’t matter.

But it will matter because it will affect the amount of time it takes you to get there.

So much time gets wasted because we give up. This time last year you said you’d stop binge eating by now and you haven’t. Now what’s going to be your reality next year? Are you going to make a series of decisions that will keep you in this spot or that will move your forward to where you want to be?

What skills and actions and thoughts are you going to compound in your life? Which ones are you going to be consistent with having in your life?

You get to pick each and every time you make a decision to eat something or not eat something.

Each bite matters. Each decision matters.

Big change doesn’t happen overnight. It doesn’t happen with one decision. It happens after a series of many of them.

You probably didn’t get stuck in binge eating after one decision. It was many made over and over. You probably didn’t know the effect those decisions would have. I had no idea where mine were leading me. But that’s how you got here, one at a time.

And that’s how you’re going to get out. One decision at a time. One, then another, and another, all moving you toward the big result, possibly with some mini results along the way, but possibly not.

You gotta keep going and believing you’re on the right track even when you’re not seeing changes. You may not be able to see them but changes are happening.

You want the big goal. You want the big win. Big wins are made up of little wins so win little!

It may not seem significant in the moment. But it will make a big impact if you keep doing it.

The decisions you make each day will determine your results in your life.

What decisions have you made today? What are you going to do today that will get you closer to your goal of stopping binge eating?

This is my one year anniversary of my podcast and if you want to have a one year anniversary of not bingeing, you gotta do all the little things, be consistent, and compound the little decisions that will get you to your big goal.

And one more thing before I go. I’m not one to ask for gifts, but I’m going to ask you to give me one for my one year anniversary. Do you know what it is? A review! Leave me one! If you don’t know how, email me as info@coachkir.comand I’ll show exactly how to do it.

I so very much appreciate you being here and listening. Yay for the effect of compounding decisions and being consistent so that results come, and come asap! I’ll talk to you next time bye bye!