the ways that fair failure sabotages us is that we don't plan our meals or track our progress so if I
don't know what I'm going to eat today I'm much more likely to just fall into my habits and eat
what I would typically eat first of all but second of all if I don't know what I'm going to do eat
today even if I want to take some time and plan a healthy meal the moment that I'm trying to plan so
this minute when I should be eating or making the meal I'm still trying to figure out what to eat
and now I've opened the door that I might get a snack and again my habits are going to send
me towards the snacks I used to eat we often fear failure because of the extreme guilt or shame that
we feel when we fail those feelings usually come because of some kind of traumatic event that might
have happened in our history so maybe I I did fail at something and it led to a devastating outcome
for me or my family or like something really bad happened or in my upbringing in my earlier years
when I did fail perhaps I was bullied for having made mistakes by parents or peers so now when we
translate this over into a diet situation I might feel guilty if I eat off plan or if my new way of
eating has a negative impact on the people in my family or the people who are eating with me
because I can't they can't eat certain things around me or my shame could come from the fact
that maybe I again I don't eat on plan and then I feel like okay I'm a horrible person because
I didn't do what I was supposed to do fear of failing can also make us try to control every
little part of a situation in order to make sure that I don't fail this is problematic because it
can lead to restrictive eating or calorie counting to try to be in a deficit so that we force our
body into weight loss this is very harmful to our health and one of the ways that you can tell that
that might be happening to you is that you're not eating to satiation and that basically means that
you're spending a good portion of your time feeling hungry I've met many people who when
they're dieting are eating such a small amount of bland salad because they're not putting salad
dressing and they're eating like really small amounts of meat like what you would feed to a
child they're not getting enough nutrients in to build a healthy body if you're a failure
can cause you to feel unmotivated overwhelmed and discouraged when we're overwhelmed we just
want things to be completed done we just wanted to be over with now that's problematic because
that might push me to use every trick I can find to try to speed up the process of weight loss this
is really problematic because I might end up doing things that first of all are not sustainable but
second of all are damaging to my health which is well it's kind of the opposite I'm trying to lose
weight to be healthier damaging my health isn't doing me any favors when we're discouraged we're
much less likely to believe in the process and therefore we're much less likely to stick to the
plan and so we eat off plan causing issues and when we're unmotivated we might do things to try
to push ourselves like punish ourselves when we make mistakes so if I eat off plan I I and then
so this is not making the diet enjoyable for me to do all of these things are going to lead us
back to emotional eating of comfort Foods because when we don't know what to do we do our habits
and it's our habit to self-soothe with food now this is extremely problematic because first of
all it's going to reinforce this idea that I'm a failure which is going to make me even more afraid
of this because I can't seem to get past it but second of all and worst of all I haven't solved
my health issue the whole reason I was doing the diet was to solve my health problems we all know
that everybody makes mistakes and when our friends family make mistakes even colleagues at work make
mistakes we have compassion for them and we give them a second third fourth chance and if they
apologize we forgive yet somehow when it comes to ourselves making mistakes is it's not acceptable
and in order for us to solve our fear of failure what we really need to do is have compassion for
ourselves when we understand that every new thing I try to do is going to take time it's going to
take practice and mistakes I'm actually going to make mistakes before I know how to do it well
then I'm looking for myself I know I'm going to make the mistake and I'm ready for it and
I'm going to be kind to myself when I see the mistake happen because I understand I need to
make some level of mistakes in order to succeed I'm not saying we're going to excuse ourselves
for a purposefully doing the wrong thing that's not what I'm saying what I'm saying is if I make
a mistake on actual oops I shouldn't have done that I'm not gonna beat myself up over it so in
order to do that the second part of this idea is the way that I talked positive self-talk what that
means is that rather than do the normal thing that we do which is yell at ourselves in our mind when
we make a mistake and we probably learned that from The Bullying that happened in our history
what we try to do instead is talk to ourselves kindly about that mistake if I tell myself that
I can do better and then work with myself to create some kind of plan to do better
then what I'm doing now is encouraging myself rather than getting mad at myself which brings
us to the third thing that you're going to do for yourself which is create realistic achievable
goals what you're going to realize is that the reason that you failed was because you actually
don't know how to do this new thing and even if I planned something that I thought was going to work
only when I start doing it am I going to realize that it wasn't gonna work I use myself as the
example for a long period of time I really wanted to work out and I thought well people work out at
the gym I need to get myself to the gym and I was having such a hard time getting myself to the gym
eventually my brother encouraged me to join with him and that we would just go together and then
I'd be going to the gym and it was only when I joined with my brother and he would call me and we
would go off to the gym and so I was on a routine and I was going did I realize I hate the gym the
gym is not the solution for me because I hate it and even though I have someone to go with I don't
want to go you need sometimes to fail at something so trying it and realizing this doesn't work to
know to find something else which I did find because I love doing activities so I love long
birding boarding and snowboarding and skiing and bicycling and and I actually do those activities
I needed to fail to find the one that was going to work you might have a hundred pounds to lose
but if you set that goal and say that's the goal and that's all you're looking at chances
are you're not going to be successful because first of all that's a goal that's going to
happen way down in the way out into your future and you're not going to have something right now
that's pushing you towards that thing that's so far away and I can tell you that losing one pound
in a month when you have a hundred pounds to lose starts to feel like it's a exercise in futility
versus I have a hundred pounds to lose and I set my goal to eat healthy every day this week
and have a planned out meal plan for that eating healthy at the end of the week if I
planned out my meal plan and I actually accomplished that I'm gonna feel great
because I accomplished the goal I set for myself even though I didn't lose the hundred pounds yet
setting goals that are achievable and realistic is how we're going to be able to succeed
when we're dieting you want to make healthy changes gradually over time
and yet swiftly at the same time and I'm gonna explain what I mean by that
you'll know that I talk about Keto and so when you're trying to start this path and get yourself
in line with these new foods the first thing I'm going to suggest you to do is look at all the
foods you normally eat pull out the ones that you can eat and still stay 20 grams or less per day
and then it's the other Foods you're gonna just you're gonna eat much less often and then you're
gonna start looking for new foods that you can add to this if you need that kind of variety so
for myself what I did I kept all the meats that I was already eating with the spices that I was
using to spice them so that they all tasted the same to me I kept broccoli which was a vegetable
that I knew that I like to eat I kept my salad I kept um cauliflower cabbage and then I went and I
added new vegetables that I had never eaten before so kale and swiss chard and a lot of vegetables
that were lower in carbohydrate I removed all the rice potatoes and and things from my diet
and I used cabbage and these other lower glycemic vegetables that I was used to to help me switch
into some more lower glycemic vegetables that I got used to and then over time as I've gone
forward I've allowed myself to eat the things that are the lowest in carb and I've been able
to stay under I would say five grams of carbs per day myself that's not the goal for everybody
keto is 20 grams of carbs or less I like to keep it that low because it helps me to feel my best
you're going to figure out your number but it starts with making changes and we don't need
to overwhelm ourselves with those changes seek help the biggest thing that you can do to help
yourself be successful on your new journey is to have assistance we can do professional help and
we can do personal help so my friends and family can actually help me and my friends and family
probably want me to succeed because they want to see that happy version of violet again so Pat was
more than happy to cook meals a little differently to accommodate the new way that I was eating the
kids were more than happy to have one or two of their favorite junk Foods in the house rather than
having all of them all the time and as a family over the last four years we've all eaten much
healthier because of the change that I decided to make and it wasn't a hardship for the kids because
they have the flexibility when they go to their grandparents and other houses that they can eat
whatever they want because it doesn't impact me and my kids are not keto the point is they were
willing to help right because they understood that it was going to help myself and Pat because
he joined me eventually to be healthier and then we all got to have more fun together the
other thing that we did to help ourselves as a family is we started celebrating with
activities rather than celebrating with food so my birthday Pat's birthday we do fun things
rather than having cake which isn't helping us we also if we are going to celebrate with food
celebrate with healthy foods for example having a steak and a nice salad instead of having cake
and there are more ways that you will find to celebrate that are not around food or to help
each other to stay on track with your diet this isn't the exhaustive list this is the
beginning of the list seeking the assistance of a psychologist or social worker to help you manage
your fear of failure is also something very important for you to do if after going through
this and trying to help yourself you're not able to get it under control completely because very
likely if you're doing it with food you are doing it in other areas of your life my family was very
helpful to me during my keto journey and I still had challenges if you want some inspiration on
your journey you can check out this video here click on the link I'm gonna meet you over there