How good are you at binge eating? I bet you’re pretty good! Maybe you’re even a contender for being the best binge eater! You know where to get the food, you know what’s good to binge on, and you know how to do it.
You don’t even have to question anything you do, you just know. You could do it with your eyes closed.
How did you get so good at it?
You practiced.
Every time you binge, you’re improving your binge eating skills. And you know what you’re getting worse at? Not binge eating.
Binge eating is easy for you, not binge eating is hard. Of course you’re going to want to do whatever is easier, but the easy way is not going to help you.
How did binge eating get so easy? You practiced doing it. Why is not binge eating so hard? Because you haven’t been practicing doing it.
Whatever you practice, you get better at doing.
Practice makes proficient.
We create all the results we currently have in our lives by taking the actions that we do. Your result of being a binge eater was caused by you binge eating over and over. You didn’t become an expert binge eater overnight, you practiced doing it to get here. You probably had no idea you would get to this point, but you have, and if you keep practicing the way you have been, you’ll get even better at binge eating.
I must say, after 10 years of binge eating, I was pretty damn good at it.
I was good at hiding it, I was good at picking out foods to binge on, and I was really good at knowing which stores had the best binge foods. I was good at creating my own guilt, frustration, and embarrassment. I was especially good at not stopping eating until I felt physically ill.
How many of these are you really good at too? And do you want to be?
I sure as hell didn’t!
Take a look at your life and what you’re really good at doing.
Are you really good at watching Netflix? Are you really good at binge eating while watching Netflix? Are you really good at speaking negatively to yourself, making unhealthy choices, and not taking care of yourself?
I want you to really think about this – what are you really good at that you don’t want to be? What are you practicing doing every day?
More importantly, what do you want to be good at and what do you need to be doing more of and less of?
You can be good at whatever you want to be. All it takes is practice.
Make a list of the things you want to be good at.
Then make a list of what you did yesterday to help you get better at them.
Make another list of what you did to not get better at them, what you did that helps you get better at the opposite result of what you want.
Giving in to your urges to binge eat are not going to help you to not binge eat, it will do the opposite. Not giving into your urges to binge eat will help you to not binge eat.
Endlessly eating in front of your television night after night is not going to help you to stop mindlessly eating in front of your television. Not eating in front of the television will help you stop mindlessly eating.
Not following through on your commitments to yourself again and again will not help you get better at trusting yourself nor will it help you to improve your ability to follow through on your commitments. Following through on what you say you will do, will change everything.
Doing what you’re not good at is hard at first. But if you want to get better you have to put in the work. If you want it to get easy, you have to practice.
So what do you want to be good at and what do you need to do to make it happen? And what are you doing now that is giving you the opposite result?
Everyday is a chance for you to get better at something. What that something is, is your choice.
