Are you ready for another glimpse into the secret workings of your mind? This week, I want to share with you a key to why you do the things you do, even when they end up being against your higher goals. You know how sometimes you do things that make you question later, “Why did I do that?” I’m going to help you see why you keep doing that thing and what you can do to catch yourself next time!

 

Your brain is an amazing and complex organ. It runs your bodily functions while still helping you to make decisions and run your life. Your mind learns quickly how to do things with efficiency and is great at automating tasks that you practice. Walking is a good example – not something you have to give conscious thought to anymore! But that tendency toward efficiency can work against you when you want to do something new, like change your way of eating or create something new. Then your brain tries to resist the change because it takes a lot of energy, so your default practiced thinking is what you fall back on. Your mind likes to keep doing what it knows will work!

But there’s another big reason why you fall into old patterns: Your thoughts produce your feelings. Your brain remembers feelings and records them. Everything that you do is because of how you think it will make you feel.

 

Did you catch that?

 

You do what you do because of how you think it will make you feel. For example, you correct your kids because (your thought) you think that a good mom trains her kids how to behave well. You think that if you do this, you will feel accomplished (like a good mom!). Or you might decide that your work schedule is crazy stressful and the doughnuts in the breakroom are calling your name. You deserve a doughnut to reward yourself for handling all the stress (your thought). You think that you’ll feel good by eating the doughnut. The brain supports this thinking for two reasons. One is because you’ve used food as a solution for stress so often that eating is linked to stress relief in your brain. And two, eating sugar and starch actually does reward the brain with a little happy hormone called dopamine, so momentarily you do feel better. Your brain conveniently “forgets” the long-term effect of eating food you don’t need, which is the scale going up or your clothes not fitting well.

 

 

This is where coaching comes in. Those thoughts and suggestions and projections from your brain are what we examine in coaching. We question them and look at them to see what you’re creating when you agree with those thoughts. If you’re making choices that cause you to eat when you’re not physically hungry, you’re doing it to make yourself feel better or to avoid feeling something unpleasant. If what you want is to lose weight, then you have to stop eating for reasons other than hunger, which is challenging when your default thinking prompts you to eat to feel better! But when we question the default thinking with coaching, that’s what allows you to change what you do. Instead of being driven by the feeling you think food will produce, you’ll choose to act in a way that supports your higher goal. Achieving your goal always feels better for longer than eating the food!

 

Eating to solve stress, fatigue, boredom, and frustration are all ways that our brain has learned to cope with unpleasant emotions. If you know that when you feel stress you can eat chips and get away from the stress for a few minutes, your brain will offer that as a solution, even though rationally you know that chips don’t really solve your stress and make the scale go up when you eat them. But it’s an efficient solution, and your brain is all about efficiency! Coaching helps you to see your patterns and find ways to change them to support yourself. It’s incredible how having a coach to help you see your mind shifts the way you make decisions.

 

 

You can rewire your brain! With practice and consistency, you will be successful. But if you’re finding that you keep bumping up against the same obstacles and you want help, I’m here for you. Email me at drandreachristianparks@gmail.com and set up a free consultation. Coaching will help you reach your goal and you can have what you need!

 

Here’s your video help for the week – listen to me go into more detail on your thoughts and feelings!