Hi, everybody, and welcome to The Arm Coach podcast, episode
#4.
We’re talking about desire today, our desire to skip workouts or
overeat. I’m going to share with you a little bit about some
common misconceptions that we have about desire. I’m going to
talk to you about what creates our desire to skip workouts or
overeat, and I’ll tell you it’s probably not what you think. And I’m
going to show you the very step if you want to start to change your
desire and decrease your desire to skip workouts or overeat.
Now getting a handle on the desire, it really is a holy grail for most
of my clients. I know I thought it was a holy grail as well when I
was trying to figure out this issue for myself. People come to me
for so many reasons. They might come to me because they’re tired
of not following thru on their workout to sculpt their arms, tired
of thinking about food all day or they’re frustrated that sometimes
they eat too much, and they don’t know why? And no matter what
it is, everyone will say the same thing.
They’ll say “I wish I didn’t desire to skip my workout, I wish I
didn’t desire being on my phone so much”, “I wish I didn’t really
like TV”, “I wish I didn’t really like pasta or cake”, whatever it is,
and “if I didn’t desire screen time and food it would be a lot easier
to lose weight and sculpt my arms”. And now wanting to contain
your desire, it’s not unique to screens and food, it’s something
that people think about in lots of different areas of their life. The
same is true for money. People who are trying to save money will
be frustrated by their desire to spend it, and they will say I wish I
didn’t have this desire to go shopping or to buy clothing or to go
on vacation, whatever it is. But it’s that desire to spend it, that’s
making it hard to save.
So, all of us can relate to wanting to desire something less, and
most people believe the answer is will power. Right? The ability to
resist your desire, the ability to say no, the ability to turn your
desire down, and when we give in we blame a lack of will power,
and we think we just need more of it. We need more discipline,
more ability to say no.
Now, willpower can work, and you may have used willpower
yourself. You can say no, you can resist your desire, you can turn
your desire down, and it can work for a period of time. You may
have even used willpower to tone up and lose weight in the past.
I know that the very first time that I went on a diet, I used
willpower the entire time. It was turning down sweets and pizza,
and gritting my teeth, and white knuckling, and just saying no
over, and over, and over again. But here’s the thing.
What we’re doing is telling ourselves that we cannot have what we
want. Our desire is still there, and there are two problems with
this. The first is that when you say no over and over and over
again, it’s exhausting. It wears you out. It takes a lot of mental
energy to have your desire keep appearing and keep pushing it
away, keep resisting it. And people get really worn out when
they’re just using will power.
The second problem is that many people, myself included, would
spend the time feeling like we were missing out because we still
really want the thing that we’re telling ourselves we can’t have. We
still have the desire, we still really want to looks at our screens, we
still really want chocolate, we’re just telling ourselves that we can’t
have it.
So we feel like we’re missing out. And for a lot of people, if that
goes on long enough, eventually we will give in. Now, people will
say, well that’s just the human condition, and I believed this for a
long time too. I thought some people are just born with more
desire than others and it’s just kind of, you’re cursed to have that
much desire, and you better hope that you have a lot of will
power, and if you don’t have will power, you’ve got to keep trying
to build it. You just have to keep trying harder, and harder to
resist.
I really believed that my desire to overeat was just part of me. It
was just something that I had, and it was something that at times
I had a lot of, and there was nothing to do about it, I just had to
keep resisting.
Now, the good news is that we’ve got desire totally backwards. It’s
not fixed, it’s not static, it’s not something that you can’t change.
In fact, you can learn how to decrease and reduce your desire. The
thing is, no one shows us how! But before I start talking to you
about how to actually do that, I want to go back and talk a little
about what creates our desire in the first place.
So, here’s how I used to understand my desire to not workout or
to eat. I really understood it in two ways. The first was my desire
was kind of inexplicable and so I thought that my desire was this
mysterious force that would sometimes appear and sometimes it
made sense when it appeared. And other times it really didn’t. But
the truth was, I was not very good at predicting it. Maybe I would
be coming home from work and I would be thinking about my
day. I would be running through a work project that I was
working on. I would be totally focused on something else and all
of a sudden this desire would appear, this desire skip my workout
or to eat.
I didn’t know where it came from. I didn’t know why it appeared,
but all of a sudden there it was. And usually the desire would
appear and I would find myself heading to the pantry and the
couch the minute I got home, not because I was hungry, but
because this desire had just appeared out of the blue.
The other way I understood my desire was that it was really
created by the screens or food itself, right? So, I thought that
being around the tv, getting notification on my phone, the food
and being around people eating, was what created my desire. It
felt like it was driven by things that were external to me.
So, for example, I would decide that maybe I would be going out
to dinner with friends and I knew that I didn’t want to eat bread
or dessert tonight. And I would tell myself, “You know what, I’m
not going to eat bread and dessert tonight, it’s not a big deal, I am
just going to skip it,” and I would feel pretty good about that
decision, and then I would get to the restaurant, and I would be
sitting there with my friends, and they would be eating from the
bread basket, and I would just feel all this desire in me. I wanted
to eat it too.
So, it felt as if I got to the restaurant, and all of a sudden I was
surrounded by people eating, and I was surrounded by bread, and
that’s what was creating my desire. Because half-an-hour earlier, I
didn’t have much desire and I felt pretty good about my decision
not to eat bread or dessert, and it really felt like it was driven by
this outside force.
Now, here’s the thing. Desire is not this mysterious thing that
comes out of nowhere. And it’s not created by things that are
external to us. It’s not created by the tv being on or the food,
which by the way, is really good news. It’s created by your
thoughts.
Now let me remind you of the Model I taught you in Episode 1. It’s
a model that really explains why we act the way we do and why we
feel the way we do. So, the Model works exactly in the order that I
say it. You think a thought, which creates a feeling or an emotion,
and when you have that feeling or emotion, that drives an action.
Really simple.
Now, in this case the action would be eating bread and dessert.
But why do we have that bread and dessert in the first place?
Because we feel a feeling, because we have an emotion, now the
feeling is desire. So, desire is the feeling in the Model. Now, it’s
not just an action and a feeling in the Model. There’s the first part,
and that explains why we have the desire to not workout or to eat.
There is always a thought before that creates it. We are always
thinking a thought beforehand that creates it.
Now, when I was starting out with this work, it really didn’t feel
that it works this way. It really felt to me that my desire to not do
my arm workout or my desire to eat either came out of nowhere
and was kind of unpredictable or it was definitely being created by
being in the presence of the screens or food. So, it did not feel like
it works this way, even though I intellectually understood the
model, right, the think-feel-act cycle, it just did not resonate.
Now, here’s why? First, you probably aren’t used to paying
attention to your thoughts. I know I wasn’t. My thoughts were just
kind of background noise. They weren’t something that I paid a
lot of attention to or tuned into on a regular basis. In fact, a lot of
the time I was trying to tune my thoughts out because there was
so much negative thinking in there, I didn’t really want to listen to
what I was thinking. And the second reason was because no one
taught me this model for a very long time in my life.
So, I was not used to thinking that my thoughts created my
feelings or that my actions were driven by the way I was feeling.
So, I didn’t have this model as a reference point to pay attention
to.
Now, here’s what’s happening. You learn to desire screens or food
at certain times. For example, maybe when you get home from
work, maybe when you are bored. We learn to desire screens or
eating at certain times, and we also will learn to desire screens or
having food as a way to feel better.
So, we might teach ourselves that when stress or anxiety or
insecurity or awkwardness or anger or some sort of a negative
emotion appears, we teach ourselves that screens or eating is a
way to feel better. And what happens is, that in either of these
situations, with enough repetition, enough times that you are on
your screens or eating at the same time, you are on screens or
eating in the same situation, your desire becomes a habit.
Now, here is the thing, you know that your desire is learned. You
know that you taught it to yourself. It’s not just something that
you have. Because there was a time in your life when you came
home from school, when you ate dinner, and when you went to
restaurants, when you went to parties, when you watched TV, and
you did not desire to overeat, because you didn’t overeat.
So, it was something that you learned, and if you learned to desire
screens, not working out or overeating, you can also learn how not
to desire it if you are given the steps to do that. So, how do you
start to decrease your desire?
If you habitualized your desire, first you need to bring your
unconscious thinking back to the surface, because we know that
desire does not just appear out of the blue. Desire isn’t created by
things external to us. There’s always a thought first. That’s how
the model works. So, you have to bring that thinking back to the
surface. And it feels like that thinking isn’t even there right now
because you have habitualized it.
Now, a lot of people that I work with will want to skip this step.
They will say, “Ok, so if my thoughts create desire, can’t we just
start thinking differently, can’t I just start thinking I don’t desire
skipping my arm workout or extra food”. And here is the thing,
you can’t. Because it will not be believable. When I started this
process, if I had just told myself over and over again, “I don’t
desire chocolate, I don't want cake, I don’t want this, I don’t want
it,” I mean, maybe I could have resisted. Maybe that would have
helped me with will power. But it certainly would not have done
anything to reduce my desire. My desire was still there. And it was
still there because I was not accessing the thought that was
initially creating it.
So, you have to understand what’s creating your desire in the first
place if you want to change it. So, how do you bring thinking, that
has become unconscious, back to the surface? The answer is you
have to build in a pause. And this is how you do it.
You need to wait for your desire to appear. You need to wait for
that desire to appear, and then pause. You need to delay skipping
your arm workout. You need to delay eating, delay the reward,
right? The reward is not working out, the reward is having food
and that delay will allow you to surface your thinking.
Now, the reason that this works is because you aren’t used to
doing this. You’re used to doing the opposite. You’re used to
having a desire appear and then shortly thereafter, fulfilling that
desire, giving yourself the reward, skipping the arm workout or
eating the chocolate. That’s what you’re used to doing. And
because it happened so quickly sometimes, you’re at a restaurant,
and you just grab the bread, right? You come home from work,
and you just head to the couch. It happened so quickly there is no
time to notice any thinking. And that’s what the pause is there for.
That’s why you need to delay, so that your thinking can start to
reveal itself.
So, once your desire has appeared, pause or delay for at least the
first thirty minutes. Try thirty minutes before giving up on the
arm workout or having food. You won’t always need to wait this
long, but at first, especially when you’re not used to this
technique, it might take a while for the thoughts to surface. But
here’s the thing. You can’t distract yourself. A lot of people will
hear, “pause and delay” and they’ll think, “Ok, fine. I’ll just set
thirty minutes on my phone and start a timer. And I’ll just wait
until the timer goes off. And then I can get on my comfy clothes or
have my food.” It doesn’t work like. It doesn’t work like that
because you need to stay present, right? The whole point is that
you’re trying to notice what thinking comes up. And you can’t do
that if you’re not present.
So, do not distract yourself. You want to notice what’s coming up.
Don’t try to change it. Don’t try to change your thinking or control
your thinking or tell yourself you shouldn’t be thinking this way.
Don’t judge it. Just let your thoughts surface. You might even
want to try writing it down. And you can do this even if you’re out
with people, right? Everybody has cell phones, and just send a
little text message to yourself, with whatever thought appears.
So, you want to let your thoughts surface. You want to watch
them, and notice them, without trying to change them. And then,
ultimately, you’re going to replace them. And that’s how you start
to change your desire. But before you can change your desire, you
have to first understand how it works. And to understand how it
works, you have to use this process. You have to pause, and you
have to let your thoughts come to the surface.
Now, this can sound simple. Pausing can sound pretty simple. But
I promise it will take a little bit of practice. When I first started
this work myself, here are some of the thoughts that I noticed, just
to give you a sense of what the thoughts can look like. But keep in
mind that yours may be totally unique to you. What I’m about to
list here is not the full spectrum of thoughts that you can have that
can create desire.
So, here are some of mine. “I want something crunchy”, “I deserve
a treat”, “I need a break”, “I had a rough day”, ‘I’m bored”, “I can’t
deal with this feeling right now”. “I need to relax”, “I feel so
anxious”, “eating just makes things better”, It’s not fun without
food”. “One time won’t hurt”,” just tonight”. “It is not a big deal”,
“I like it”, “it tastes good”, “everyone else is having some”, “people
will notice if I’m not”. “It’s normal to overeat”, “I don’t want to
miss out”, “it’s a celebration why not?” “Who cares?” “And screw
it”.
So, these were all the thoughts that I noticed that were fueling my
desire, and once I started paying attention to them it became
easier to notice when they appeared. I started to notice for some
of these thoughts, I was thinking them all the time, right? They
were coming up quite a bit. And the more I thought them, the
more my desire grew.
So, this really is the very first step in figuring out how to reduce
your desire. And when I started it, I had no idea that my desire
was created by my thoughts. I really believed that it was this
mysterious force that sometimes appeared or it was created by
being in the presence of food. I really thought that’s how it worked
for so many years. But once I tried this technique, and I started to
pause and delay so that I had time to surface my thinking, all of a
sudden I saw how I was thinking all these thoughts that were
creating desire. And when I realized that I was the one thinking
these thoughts, that it wasn’t this mysterious force, it wasn’t
created by screens or food itself, all of a sudden, I felt so much
more in control. Because if they were thoughts that I was
thinking, if they were thoughts that I had learned to habitualize,
they were thoughts that I could also work to change.
And I said this earlier, it really is the best news ever that screens
and food is not what’s creating your desire. Because when I
thought screens and food was what was creating my desire, I also
thought that the way not to desire it was to remove myself. Was to
sequester myself from it. I had to keep away from it, and I used to
joke sometimes that everything would be a lot easier if I just could
live in a cabin in the woods, right? If I could just be away from all
these temptations, it will be so much easier.
But what I realized doing this work is that I didn’t need to remove
myself. I didn’t need to stay away from certain things because
screens or food itself was not creating my desire. What I had to do
was pay attention to all those thoughts that I had when I wanted
to skip my arm workout or was around food, right? It was all the
thoughts that I was thinking that was creating my desire. And the
reason that I don’t desire overeating now, is because I have a
completely different set of thoughts about food. Those thoughts
that were so automatic for so long in my life, are not the same
thoughts that I have anymore.
The other thing that I realized, is that all my efforts to workout
consistently or reign in my eating, were hit or miss, because I
assumed that the couch or the food was running the show. I
assumed that screens or food was the thing creating my desire and
I didn’t have any control. When I started paying attention to my
thinking, and understanding that the model was behind
everything, that my desire was being created by my thoughts, I
realized how much control I had to actually change my desire.
Alright, so let us recap here. Your desire is not fixed, it’s not a
mysterious force, it’s not outside of your control. It’s created by
your thinking. And if you want to start the process of learning how
to change your desire, the first thing you need to do is surface that
thinking, and you do that by pausing. You do that by not
immediately responding to the desire, but pausing and allowing
your thoughts to surface.
Noticing your thoughts is going to make a such a big difference
because it will show you how much you are creating your desire
and that it’s not created outside of you. It’s not created by this
mysterious force. And that will make you feel so much more in
control.
Ok, so let me know how it goes. I’m always really curious to hear
from you how these different techniques are working.
I love hearing from my followers, and so if you want to send me an
e-mail, if you want to let me know how it is going or if you have an
idea for a topic that you want me to talk about, you can send me
an e-mail at
[email protected]. Thanks for listening
everyone.
