Sometimes, in order to avoid a complete collapse, we’ll allow ourselves to lapse in a specific way. That’s healthy. It’s the equivalent of the fuse blowing to avoid burning down the house.
I recently had a conversation with an athlete – let’s call her Joanne. She was feeling despondent after she felt she’d lost control of her eating and put on a little weight. This is always an issue for Joanne, who has considered herself overweight in the past, and lost a lot of weight before becoming a triathlete.
This perceived overeating, therefore, had a much bigger psychological effect on Joanne than may be assumed from the limited physiological impact of a small weight gain. Because of the history of weight loss, she considered her previous body shape to be bad, and her current physical state of fitness to be good.
Any potential lapse into overeating, with resulting weight gain, was perceived by Joanne in black and white terms. Weight gain equals bad. Weight gain equals failure.
When we spoke, Joanne was already a couple of weeks into feeling she had “lost control” and was starting to see a gain in weight. Her reaction to this was to feel that she had failed. Her discipline was lacking.
We talked at length about the unusual circumstances Coronavirus has brought, not to mention the fact Joanne has recently moved house, and is coping with her husband working away from home during the lockdown. By any measure, these are unusual times.
The short term objective, though, was to bring Joanne to a place where she could get back on track.
After a couple of weeks, there was an air of resignation from Joanne. There was no point in correcting her behaviour. The damage was done. The rot had set in. What was the point?
Although the details of this example are pretty specific, I want to focus in on the broad point outlined in the previous paragraph. How to bring yourself back onto the right course, when your lizard brain is telling you there is no way back.
“I have put on 5kg, so what’s the point of even trying to eat well?”
“I have missed eight weeks of Thursday Night Swim Club. I won’t be able to swim.”
“I have been injured for a month and lost all my fitness. I might as well pack in triathlon.”
These are examples of feeling “past the point of no return.”
A good analogy here is a power surge in the house. The circuit breaker does its job and the power goes out. In the old days, we used to say the fuse had blown.
You are sitting in the darkness. No telly. No broadband. Oh my god… no kettle! What’s the point of going on? You are going to be sitting in this darkness for the rest of your life…
No. Of course not.
The system worked. There was a problem that stressed the system, and the fuse blew. The fuse that protects the house.
You replace the fuse, trip the switch, and turn the lights back on. Now, you might have to log back into the wifi. You might have to wait for the Sky Digital to warm back up. You might have to be careful about putting the kettle and iron on at the same time.
But the lights are on.
For Joanne, the system had overloaded with the stresses of a global pandemic. The fuse that had blown was her self control over her eating patterns. After two weeks, the lights were off, and the house felt cold and unwelcoming. There was no point in training because her eating would negate any benefits.
We talked about replacing the fuse. Resetting the system.
The last two weeks had happened. There was nothing that could change that. The next two weeks were what she could control. Replacing the fuse, getting the system back online, starting again.
Joanne committed to nothing more than returning to her previous eating patterns – the system that had worked successfully for her for the last few years. Within a couple of days, she felt more positive and the new / old behavioural patterns started to come naturally. The lights were on and the house felt warm again.
Sometimes, we all find ourselves falling into unwelcome behaviours. Sometimes we are forced into them by external factors. But the difficulty is always to catch ourselves, to replace the fuse, and to reset the system.
That might require an intervention from a coach or colleague, or from a loved one. But if you can train yourself to see these pitfalls and work out where your psychological fuse box is kept, it’s possible to make that intervention yourself. Step back and look at the situation, replace the fuse, and reset the system.