What's Wrong With This Thinking?

Let's say I have a friend named Janice who decides to become a writer.  Every morning she gets up at 5:00 am to write for 2 hours before work.  Every single morning.  In six months, she has written 2 Children's Books, and has begun working on her Novel.  Every morning she gets up and writes.  She is a writer.

One morning she fails to get up.  Her alarm clock doesn't go off because for one single night she forgets to set it, and she wakes up in a panic at 7:15.

She is devastated.  She determines that she must not be a writer after all.  She determines that it is all for nothing, she'll never TRULY succeed at writing.  She has broken her routine for one day, and throws the towel in, deciding that even though being an author was the most important thing in the world for her, since she has missed a day she may as well give up.

What would you tell this lady?  Would you point out how ridiculous it is that she even think that way?

Would you point out the success she's had?  The progress she's made?  The 24 weeks that she HAS been working diligently towards her goal?  She made one mistake.  She forgot to set her alarm.  That does not change the essence of who she is or what she wants.

And the same thing applies to us.  Janice is an example of all-or-nothing thinking as applied to something neutral, something other than food and "dieting" otherwise we would not have recognized the erroneous thinking.

We are Janice, aren't we?  With our programs?  We have one off day, or one discouraging weigh in, or we make one choice as regards our food intake which doesn't line up with where we said we wanted to go, and we go from having ALL hope to LOSING all hope.  We go from SUCCEEDING to DESPAIR.

I'll let you in on a little secret.  I used to be an all-or-nothing gal.  I was Janice.  And I was usually left with nothing.

So I decided that it is more important to continue to decide today, right now, which direction I will head.  The fact that I forgot to set my alarm clock and get up at 5:00 yesterday to write doesn't mean I don't want to be a writer, or I won't succeed at being a writer.  Yet we tend to ascribe to that way of thinking with our health.

As Epictetus says, "First say what it is you would be.  Then do what you have to do."

So forget any lapse of program or judgment you may have made yesterday, or last weekend, or a month ago that you may not have recovered from.  Did it deal you a blow?  Well, sure it did.  But it doesn't have to mean you put the ka-bosh on all of the hopes and dreams you have for yourself as regards your weight, as regards your health, does it? 

Does it?