I wrote a chapter about this in my book called Stop Overeating Today! 33 Tips That Will Change Your Life. This chapter doesn’t just relate to overeating, but to EVERYTHING IN LIFE. If you’re interested in the book, you can get it on Amazon or at http://www.stopovereatingtips.com
Here it is:
Play an Empowering Role
Shakespeare said, “All the worlds a stage, and all the men and women merely players.” Each moment in each day we can choose what role we will play. Our habits turn us into predictable characters. We expect to act certain ways because that is how we have done things in the past. That is the label we have given ourselves, that is the role we identify with, and that is how we see ourselves. Self perception is very powerful and can lead us to blindly play a role that is not in our best interest.
For example, one night at nine pm I was making dinner for myself. It had been a long work day and I was just about ready to hit the sack. As I sat there stirring my scrambled eggs dinner over the gas burning stove, I started to feel sorry for myself. “Poor, tired me,” I thought. “I work so hard and never get a break.” If I could illustrate how I saw myself in that moment, I would draw a haggard old woman with white scraggly hair bending her tired achy back over her measly supper. It was a pathetic image!
The moment I had identified myself as a poor hard-working person and planted a large “victim” sticker on my forehead, the more I wanted to convince myself that it was true. I wanted to play that role. Luckily, a couple seconds into my fantasy, I caught myself, was amused by it, and decided to switch to a more empowering role.
Be careful about what label or role you have given to yourself. Once you believe that a certain role belongs to you and it goes unrecognized, you are constantly trying to prove it is true and you become stuck playing that role.
How does this relate to overeating? If you identify yourself as someone who cannot break free from overeating, you will keep playing the role. That role will determine your actions.
Next time you slip up with your health goals, be careful how you label yourself. If you apply the “failure” or “weak” label to yourself, you will likely start playing that role. Then you have type-cast yourself and you expect to disappoint yourself. Be conscious of the role you are playing and if you don’t like it, create a new empowering role. Start thinking like a character with a winning attitude and you will soon have one.
Tip at a Glance
What will you call yourself today? What role will you play? Identifying yourself as someone who is working on self-improvement is much more empowering than calling yourself a weak failure.
Choose a role that empowers you. For example, when I was feeling like a victim, I changed my role to be a person who is hard-working and successful. When you choose your role, you win the mind game and come out on top!
If you find it difficult to start playing a more empowering role, come up with some adjectives to describe the type of role you want to play. Do you want to be more courageous, more decisive, more compassionate? Ask yourself, how would I react in this situation if I was more courageous and decisive? How would I act if I had more compassion for myself? Imagine it and then start executing that role, as if it were you already. Pretty soon, it will be.
