The Art of Evaluation.
One of the biggest missteps we can make on our nutrition journey is the incorrect evaluation of our goals.
When women come to me, they come with an overarching problem, something they want to fix or stop. Overeating, binge eating, chronic dieting, need for clarity on the right nutrition path, etc. One of my roles in coaching my clients on their personal transformation, is that I help show them how to clearly map out this journey. One of the most important parts of the journey is the way in which we understand and evaluate progress.
It is a typical, and completely normal human tendency to have little patience for the process when in pursuit of a goal. At times we will want the attainment of a goal to be realized almost as soon as the idea takes hold in our minds. It is this impatience that I believe often leads us to evaluate our progress with the attainment of that goal.
This could sound like:
“I haven’t lost all the weight yet.”
“I haven’t stopped overeating or binge eating or emotional eating.”
“I haven’t stopped eating x, y, or z food.”
These evaluations can leave us feeling frustrated, angry, and can make it easier to give up on the noble goals we may have for our own self improvement.
Here are my tips on how to create a plan, and evaluate it properly so that you can maintain your motivation and sanity:
Define your goal. For example, I want to stop overeating.
Pick small, achievable steps that you can start TODAY to get you one step closer to that goal. Be careful to avoid making daily or weekly goals that sound like this: “I won’t overeat tomorrow”; or “I won’t overeat for a whole week”. Trying to enjoy a day or a week of your desired outcome, while it sounds really satisfying, won’t teach you what you need to know and practice to sustain it. Rather, pick positively focused, and achievable actions. The key is that the actions you set out need to be within your current ability to execute. So if you are overeating everyday, none of your actions should be focus on ‘not overeating’. Rather, they should be focused on other positive things you can do. For example, perhaps you can, eat breakfast everyday, or eat 3 meals per day, or drink more water. What you do to work towards your goal also doesn’t have to be directly related to eating. An example of such an action could be, writing in a journal everyday for 5-10min to explore some of your feelings and thoughts.
Monitor the achievement of the positively focus actions you will take. You may still be frustrated by the fact that overeating persists, but, by making and maintaining one or two positively focused actions, you will be one step closer to the attainment of your goal. This is also how you will keep your motivation to continue to work towards the attainment of your goal. The trick here is cultivating the patience to stick with and endure this period of time when you are still living with these unwanted behaviours. Here is where having a coach can really help you keep your focus on what really matters, because it is completely natural to lose sight of that when you are in the situation.
As you master your positively focused actions, slowly add new actions and monitor those.
Finally, when discomfort or anxiety surfaces because it feels as though it’s taking too long to reach your goal (and I say ‘when’, because it will most certainly happen, and that’s totally normal), the best thing to do is to feel that discomfort, breathe through it, and re-focus your attention on your positively focused actions.
Define your goal.
Pick positively focused actions, within your reach.
Monitor those actions and add more as you master them.
Breathe through the discomfort, and re-focus your attention on the actions.
I hope you found this helpful. Feel free to leave any of your questions, comments, or thoughts below. I’d love to hear from you.
As always, remember that you can do anything, you just have to put your mind to it.
Your Mindful Dietitian (Stephanie)
I currently have 2 openings for new clients (please note that I only offer online appointments at this time). Email me at stephanie@yourmindfuldietitian.com to book a free call to see if my services are right for you.