Day Two Hundred and Eighty Seven!!!!!!!!

Self Affirmation For Today; 
I am Braver Than I Believe, Stronger Than I Seem, Smarter Than I Think- Pooh Bear


Success VS. Failure


In order to succeed you need to be inspired to achieve, as well as motivated to achieve. In order to be able to achieve self-control you need to be able to override your impulses that tell you to give up. By overriding that impulse you are agreeing with a standard of what is appropriate for you. So there are three parts to this process;

1. There is something that is presented to you that creates an urge, you start to think about something and the urge is to do something. 
2. There is a motivation to override that urge, which might be Not do it! or Do it!
3. Overriding the urge means that you have adhered to a standard (either internal standard or external standard) of what is appropriate 

So for example, you go to work and someone has brought in a box of doughnuts. So the first thing that will happen is that you will have an urge, you have seen it, or smelled it, and you start to think about it, and envision eating it. Next, you start to engage in self-control, what is your motivation to override that impulse? If you decide to override that impulse it means that you have adhered to your own internal standard of desirable behaviour of what is appropriate, if you don’t override that urge then it also means that you have also adhered to a standard of what is appropriate either internally or externally. 


Urges and impulses can be overridden. In order to override an urge, the first component is to self-monitor. In the Emotionally Focussed Eating program you are asked to self-monitor your food consumption by item, feelings, body reactions, carbohydrate as well as caloric daily totals, and daily weighing. It has been proven that the more a person monitors their weight every day that the result is, that they have healthier weight levels. There is a correlation between food intake and weight, and it is important to be able to self-monitor on a daily basis in order to be able to practice self-control. By doing this, keeping track, you become more responsible with your nutrition and you begin to memorize this behaviour so that one day you can just do it by rote. 


The second component is to do with standards, standards are what is appropriate in a given situation either externally or internally. A standard is the BMI or HAWII or the identification with a specific diet plan like the keto, and/or specific clothing or size of clothing you want to wear. This provides a standard measurement in order to be able to know exactly what is appropriate in order to attain your standard of desirable behaviour.


The third component is measuring your strength of energy. This is a measurement in regards to your physical or mental exhaustion as well as how stressed and/or fatigued you feel. This is our measurement of HALTT (hungry, angry, lonely, tired/thirsty). When these things happen then there can easily be a self-control failure. So it is good to have a way of measuring these stressors so that you know exactly where you are and therefore can respond appropriately in regards to maintaining self-control.