I’m trying to improve my eating habits.
It’s a shocking state really!
Proper comfort eating. I know it needs to change. So I’m taking small steps. (Big steps have never worked, I’m not a dieter).
Of all the courses, books, methods, the one I’m finding most inspiring is Tom Watson’s weekly newsletter! (It’s now a Rethink Work recommended).
He has included extracts from his new book and it’s a real honest account of trying to lost weight, the struggle and how easy it is to fall off.
He includes a lot of research and stories of the advice and methods he tried and tested. The good, the bad, the ugly.
He shares how James Clear’s Atomic Habits helped him.
Clear’s own theory about habits and change also fascinated me. As he saw it, there existed three levels of behavioural change. He wrote:
The first layer is changing your outcomes. This level is concerned with changing your results: losing weight, publishing a book, winning a championship. Most of the goals you set are associated with this level of change.
The second layer is changing your process. This level is concerned with changing your habits and systems: implementing a new routine at the gym, decluttering your desk for better workflow, developing a meditation practice. Most of the habits you build are associated with this level.
The third and deepest layer is changing your identity. This level is concerned with changing your beliefs: your worldview, your self-image, your judgements about yourself and others. Most of the beliefs, assumptions, and biases you hold are associated with this level.
Many people, said Clear, start the process of change by focusing on what they want to achieve, which leads to outcome-based habits. The alternative is to focus on who we wish to become, by building identity-based habits.
Who do you wish to be?
This monumentally helped me leap. Who do you want to be? That person who stuffs their face with biscuits all day and feel tired and fed up all the time, or that person who is feeling great because they help the,selves through food choices.
Which is more uncomfortable? Being the first or second person?
I’m still along way off where I want to be.
But I’m so much closer to the person I want to be when it comes to eating.
If you want to change something, start with how it feels to Be it, rather than the end goal.
eleanor