Healthy eating has been one of my biggest ongoing struggles in life. This has been a source of diminished confidence in me since I declare to myself that “I’m going to get healthy” and I’ll do it for a while and then slowly slip more and more into bad habits until I am back to my old ways. When I slip back to the junk, I feel like I let myself down and that starts my mind spinning and wondering if I will ever get control of this or I can keep my own promises.

I feel like I play it safe a lot and don’t really do things unless I know that I will succeed (I know, I’m working on that). My narrative around eating healthy is failure before I start, but, at the same time, I know that this is my mountain that I must summit. Being in this position is actually a good place as it forces me to not play small and overcome some of that self doubt so that I can believe what I tell myself.

If I don’t win this battle of mind games, the alternative is to be overweight and riddled with health problems later in life. That’s not where I want to be. I have too many things to do before my body diminishes.

Even though I had no intention to take this on as a New Year’s resolution, I have been doing intermittent fasting for the last three weeks. Basically, my daily eating window is from 12pm to 6:30pm or so. This has made it really easy to say no to things that aren’t within this time period. I have to say I am feeling really well about this. Some days are really effortless and some are a little challenging. On the days when I feel some resistance, I have been able to identify old mental patterns that have hindered me in the past. Noticing the presence of these old thoughts is a big step for me. That allows me to reframe or substitute these thoughts with something more positive and uplifting. On days when I can’t reframe, I just push through and ride out a few hours of discomfort.

I am taking on an arch nemesis this year and I intend on being victorious. The will to win is launching me into this new chapter and my why will help me to sustain the momentum. When it does get tough, I have to be aware of my old narrative and not let complacency win.

Do you have anything on your list that you can chip away at? What steps can you take to get moving on it? Let’s do this together.