Perfectionism could be the Problem

Are you always waiting for the right day to start to eat well?

Probably next month because this one’s got too busy,

In fact, the start of the year sounds more clean.

And you start, you’re doing really well following your plan.

Then a couple of days later, you eat too many things in the morning,

and this continues throughout your day.

You're so cross when you're in bed and you realise what you've done.

You’ve blown it now, you’ll have to restart next week.

And this is a familiar pattern of starting and blowing it up.

Because you're telling yourself you're a perfectionist.

Perfectionist thinking may sound good and driven,

but it’s not getting you the results you want.

Underlying perfectionism is the idea that there's a right or a wrong.

If you’re doing it right, you lose weight, then when you’ve stuffed up you don't.

This black and white thinking portrays you as good or bad.

And when you're so busy trying to be right or good, you miss out on what you could learn on the way.

You're closing yourself down to changing a thing.

Like when you’d planned to eat nothing for breakfast, and your night's crappy, so you decide to have some toast instead to make you feel better.

An all or nothing thinker says, I’ve blown the day,

I may as well keep eating what I want, as my plans have gone to sh..!

If you’d paused here, after you’d eaten your toast,

and dropped into curiosity rather than a perfectionist mindset,

(where you’re so busy giving yourself a beating when things don’t go ‘right’)

You’d have noticed you had a thought like this-

“I’m exhausted, I need a piece of toast to get me through my day.”

Curiosity allows the question, Is this thought my brain offered true?

By slowing this all down with compassion on your side,

you’ll realise eating toast will never solve for exhaustion.

And it definitely won’t make getting through your day any better.

The truth is, eating more than your body needs actually slows you down.

Insulin in your blood means you’re storing fat, where you’ll probably feel sluggish and heavy.

And self judgement of a perfectionist, makes you tireder than you were before.

Infinitely more empowering, is what you’ve learned from this mistake.

Next time you go to eat more toast, a part of you now knows, it won’t help.

And you’ll have a planned response to answer your brain.

As you know you don't need the food, but you may need some rest later on.

This moment of reflection is how you have your own back.

You've started building integrity with yourself.

Your goal is a sure thing now, as you’re prepared to do what you said.

And you've learned that being a perfect human, doesn't compare to success.