Tag: Psychology

After last week, I definitely noticed progress on the ridiculous snacking and overeating. That doesn’t mean I was 100% done with it, had a eww what is wrong with me moment on Thursday when I was eating subconsciously and caught myself. Any sort of progress these days is great!

This week McGonigal asked us to really look at how guilt, promise of relief and external circumstances affect our willpower, more specifically: relief when stressed, what terrifies us (news stories for example), how do we respond to setbacks and how we use our feel-good feelings.

In the past my stress release came from reading and eating junk food. I’ve, thankfully, cut back on the junk food and reading remains a stress release, but as I’ve mentioned on my new blog, meditation has really helped a lot with de-stressing and mental clarity recently. I don’t generally get stressed from external factors like the news or media, but I do often get stressed out think about my future and I have spent a lot of time over the past few months trying to stay in the moment and not fret so much about the future.

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This week it was back to observation and not doing. It’s funny every time I read one of these observation chapters I write out what I already know and generally see it happen throughout the week. I guess what I’m really looking for is that piece to push me over the edge to make me do what I need to do to overcome my laziness/distractions.

Again, as with Duhigg, McGonigal asked us to look at what it is that makes us do something (our reward) and to take note of how retailers set things up to take advantage of (or to create) distracted consumers. This has become incredibly apparent as my local grocery store has recently rebranded and is attempting to be more upmarket that it was previously, and this goes so far as to include, tastings, demonstrations and even live music. Honestly, I just think it’s obnoxious and thankfully shop early enough in the day most weekends that there’s nothing going on. I can easily see where this would cause many people to purchase unnecessary things, but I go in with a list and pretty much buy the same thing every week.

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Oh, shocker, I’m back to struggling again. I definitely think that the project I selected was too broad. It’s not too late to change, it but I know it’s the big one that I need to work towards all the time: getting healthy. I have, made major steps this week which is great, but I’m still wondering where I am on this project. I’m still enjoying the meditation portion from Week 1 and will keep with it at 10 minutes for now.

This week, as part of Chapter 4: License to Sin, McGonigal asked to do a lot of reflection, like in the past few chapters and it definitely hit home a bit more this week than in the past. So clearly, the incremental steps are working. The Under the Microscope section really hit home for me this week. I definitely congratulate myself for making instrumental steps but I don’t hold myself accountable; I put things off to tomorrow and let myself eat unhealthy and be lazy because I’ll make it up later; I eat more of something when it’s fat-free or low-fat, or I know I’ll be going to the gym later; And thankfully, I do know that the real-me wants to get healthier and that I HAVE to learn how to control my unhealthy urges and laziness!

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Things are FINALLY starting to pick up in the project and the book. I’m starting to see how my decisions (or unknown decisions) happen and when I miss them!

This week McGonigal asked readers to do two things and to think about a third. The first was to eat healthy snacks instead of junk food and to pick one thing to do different from our usual routine and do it. All while thinking about our “want power”; what it is that we ultimately want out of what we’re doing and to think about that when we struggle to accomplish our goal.

Well, not-shockingly, I failed miserably on the healthy snacks. It’s not an excuse, but phonathon started this past week and I started three 50-hour weeks and needless to say didn’t stick to my plan. I did eat mostly healthy food for lunch and dinner, but snacks I definitely did not do. I distinctly remember thinking a couple of times, oh I should get nuts or something from the vending machine and instead got chips. Fail, but I’ll keep working on it.

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