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3. Dealing with Frustration and
Other Unruly Emotions
3a. Practicing Patience
Everyone experiences urges of
wanting something and wanting it now. It may be an urge to
snack, to have some chocolate, or quickly get away from feeling
bored or anxious. So what will you do? The answer will in part
be determined by your practice of patience. Patience is your
skill of calming yourself, not acting on impulse, and making
decisions in line with your game plan. Great intentions and game
plans are often derailed by quick, impulsive actions. These
actions may not be logical or reasonable, but they can be
powerful.
To develop your patience, try the following suggestions
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Catch your "I must have it
now!" thinking. If you think in
an urgent, must-have-it manner, you are likely to act in such a
way. Catch yourself and ask, "How critical is this? What is
the urgency?" Remind yourself that you can be patient and
that you can tolerate uncomfortable feelings. Remember, your
actions will follow your thoughts.
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Picture how you will feel later.
Unfortunately, acting on your impulse has its rewards. You will
often get immediate pleasure, comfort or relief. At that moment,
it is difficult to think about how you will feel in an hour. But
seeing the big picture of your actions is the key. Use signs or
notes to help you remember how you will feel later if you don’t
use patience.
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Banish the rules and musts. Some people have very strict rules
about what they must do or not do as part of their game plan.
Never eat a dessert, only eat certain foods, exercise seven days
a week. While these may seem logical in light of your goal, such
rules tend to make people feel overly controlled and restricted.
Eventually you will want to "break free" of the rules,
typically in an impulsive and counterproductive manner.
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Caution Areas!
Your success with patience can be hampered by a variety of
issues. Think about the following issues to see if they are
effecting your patience?
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Frequent feelings of frustration or
anger
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Feel depleted and deprived
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Poor attention to hunger and energy
levels
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Feel entitled to celebrate and have
pleasure
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Fear of slowing your pace
To learn how you can improve your patience, read Chapter 6 Do
You Have to Have It Now? in our book, The Ten Hidden Barriers
to Weight Loss and Exercise.
To learn more about Developing a Reasonable Game Plan,
click on Tools.
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3b. Handling Mistakes
Mistakes and slips are a normal and expected
part of any self-improvement effort. Do you think you’ll mess
up or slip from your game plan? It may be small, like eating an
extra helping or more importantly, like not exercising for a few
weeks. Mistakes provide opportunities to learn about likely
trouble spots, make adjustments to your game plan, and treat
yourself in a supportive and helpful manner. The concern isn’t
that you’ll make a mistake, but how you will react when it
happens. This can be difficult. If you tend to get very angry,
critical, or easily discouraged with yourself, mistakes can make
this work too painful or uncomfortable to do.
Here are some ideas for handling mistakes and making them
useful
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Make your expectations realistic.
It is important to be fair and reasonable with what you are
expecting. Ask yourself, "Do I really expect myself to make
mistakes? Do I believe it is part of a learning process?"
You will also want to have realistic expectations for how long
it will take to reach your goals.
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Think about mistakes as useful. What
is your attitude towards your own mistakes? Rather than just
accept they will happen, you can think of them as opportunities
to learn about yourself and what you need to do differently. It
is also a chance for you to practice reacting in a calm,
encouraging style towards yourself.
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No big deal. Simply catch and
return. Sometimes you will be able to
learn something important from your mistakes, but other times
you can simply catch the mistake and calmly return to your game
plan. No stewing, analyzing or big emotional reaction is needed. Just notice that you got off
track and see yourself acting in line with your goals once
again.
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Caution Areas!
Handling mistakes effectively can be very challenging. The
following list describes some problems that may be effecting how
you react to mistakes
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Expectations of being perfect
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Quick to be critical or angry with
yourself
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Reacting with guilt or shame when
you mess up
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Quickly distracting yourself or not
thinking about mistakes
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Dramatic conclusions "I blew it" or "I
can’t do it"
To learn how about handling mistakes, read Chapter 8 How Do
You Treat Your Mistakes? in our book, The Ten Hidden Barriers
to Weight Loss and Exercise. Our coaching services may also
be helpful!
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3c. Managing Unruly Emotions
Staying on track with your weight loss, exercise or any goal
can be challenging when emotions are demanding attention. Maybe
it is boredom, loneliness, sadness, anger, or anxiety. These
emotions all have a discomfort and tension to them and you
naturally want to lessen these feelings. Unfortunately, it is
quite common to eat or "lie around" when feeling bad.
While this gives some relief at the moment, you often feel even
worse later on. Your unruly emotions are real and deserve
attention. But what will you do with them?
To better manage your unruly emotions
The more aware you are of them, the more control you will
have over them. Try to label the feelings and notice when they
are likely to occur. You may find that certain times of the day,
such as late afternoon or evening, are a more likely time for
uncomfortable emotions.
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Take responsibility for what you
do with the emotion. You will usually
do something in reaction to what you are feeling. It may
be quick and automatic, like a snack or surfing the TV channels-
but you will do something. If you are aware and mindful of what
you do, you will be in a much better position to handle the
feeling.
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Directly address the emotion.
There are a variety of things to do to directly manage and
lessen the troubling emotion. It may involve understanding and
changing the thoughts which are intensifying the emotion. Or you
may find it helpful to do some problem solving, such as
addressing the conflict or contacting a friend. Directly
managing negative emotions is a critical skill that can be
developed and strengthened.
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Shift away from the distress.
Depending on the situation, you may find it more helpful to
simply ease the feeling or move away from it. One of the best
things to change how you are feeling is to exercise. You may not
feel like it, but you will be glad you did. Relaxation
techniques and soothing activities can lessen the tension and
uncomfortable feeling as well.
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Caution Areas!
Nothing can interfere with your game plan like unruly
emotions. Review the following concerns which may need additional attention
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Chronic feelings of tension or
tiredness
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Quick impulse to avoid any
uncomfortable feelings
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Avoiding or procrastinating
important tasks
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Significant problems with depression
or anxiety
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Uncertain about whether it is worth
the work
To learn more about managing your emotions, read Chapter 7: Are
Unruly Emotions Ruling Your Life? in The Ten Hidden Barriers
to Weight Loss and Exercise. Coping with difficult emotions
can be very challenging. In addition to using our Tools, we encourage you to contact a mental health
professional if you think it may be needed.
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