One of the most important skills we work on with all our clients is giving themselves credit. Every time a client does something or makes a decision that is in line with their goals, we encourage them to say, “Good job, I deserve credit.” Our goal is that they give themselves credit every time they eat sitting down, slowly, and mindfully. Every time they read their Advantages List and their Response Cards. When they track their food (if they’re up to that skill). Every time they continue tracking even if they feel they’ve made an eating mistake. Every time they have the urge to stress eat but engage in a different behavior instead.
One of the reasons this is so important is because it helps build confidence by providing evidence that they can do this. In the absence of deliberately giving themselves credit, many people either fail to recognize all the great things they’re doing, or they discount them. For example: “It’s true I ate my planned breakfast, but then I made a mistake at lunch, so it doesn’t matter.”
Recently, my client Jen told me that she was in a convenience store and was tempted to spontaneously buy a bag of candy. She undoubtedly would have in the past, but this time she didn’t. She thought about how eating all of that candy would make her feel and left the store without it. In session, I asked her, “Did you give yourself credit for that?” Jen said she didn’t; in fact, she did just the opposite. Instead of thinking how great it was that she didn’t buy candy, she shamed herself. She had the thought, “Of course I shouldn’t be buying candy. I’m trying to lose weight, and overeating candy would fly in the face of those goals.”
Jen’s thoughts in that moment are a great example of credit-interfering beliefs. Many people have trouble giving themselves credit because they “should” themselves. They think, “I should be doing these things anyway so I don’t deserve credit,” or, “These things should already be easy for me, so I don’t deserve credit.” When I hear this type of thinking, I always remind people that, no, they shouldn’t already be doing these things. These tasks are hard and not intuitively obvious to the majority. If consistently exhibiting on-track eating behaviors were easy, nobody who ever lost weight would gain it back. If this were easy, everybody who wanted to lose weight (and keep it off) would be able to do so. These tasks are hard, and those who are striving toward them deserve so much credit.
In the case with Jen, her thought was similar: “I shouldn’t have been doing this [buying unplanned candy] anyway, so I don’t deserve credit.” I said to Jen, “Yes you should have been buying candy in that moment! That was your habit, and habits dictate so much of what we do. You should have because candy is hugely tempting and engineered to be as tasty as possible. Our food landscape is incredibly difficult, and we are faced with huge temptations almost every where you look. You absolutely should have been buying candy. But you didn’t, and for that you deserve so much credit.”
Instead of feeling shame, Jen should have felt triumphant (as I felt for her!). While I wasn’t able to quite convince her of how significant and credit-worthy that moment was, Jen did say she felt better about her decision not to buy candy. We agreed that she will continue to work hard on giving herself credit moving forward.