It’s Not About Self-Control

It's not about self-control

I was first inspired to become a life coach when I had a life changing experience with my relationship with food. After years of trying to “eat better,” I finally felt the connection between how I ate and how I felt. I had always thought I had really bad willpower, but I found when I saw clear results I had mad willpower skills!

I wanted to help women, like myself, who were prone to extremes increase their own self-regulation so that they could do the things they needed to do to feel better.

But I didn’t see the flaw in my own thinking. Forcing yourself to do things you don’t want to do and forbidding yourself to do the things you want to is a sure fire way to burn yourself out!

It’s not about having better self-control, it’s about getting better at listening to your own needs, both physically and emotionally.

All these years I’ve been beating myself up about not following through on the things I knew I should be doing, when what is really the best way to gain energy is to do the things that make you feel powerful and joyous!

It's not about self-control

Comment (1)

  1. This is wonderful! This is the conclusion I came to after burning myself out doing too many things I didn’t want to do myself. (Some were "obligatory" — though I’m revisiting how much really deserves that label — while others were things generally in line with my goals, but imposed by other like-minded people instead of chosen by myself.) I actually just found a blog post by a guy talking about anxiety, and how his symptoms miraculously lifted after he allowed himself to do one simple thing: play. Which I would define as doing what you WANT to do, not what you feel you HAVE to do. There are things we truly have to do, yes, but it’s much less than we often think. I don’t consider myself to have anxiety, but I do develop symptoms like that if I go for an extended period of never making time for myself and my goals.

    Thanks for these thoughtful sanity checks!

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