Weird headline for an article, I know, but when reaching our fitness goals, guilt plays a prominent role in the process. It usually goes like this: I want to achieve a specific goal, and in order to do that, I need to change these specific behaviors. But then, we fail, mess up, get off track, and guilt sets in. It’s something along the lines of, “I shouldn’t have done that thing, I need to try harder”. But the most important part about behavior change is how we deal with failure. The natural way to deal with failure is through guilt. And it’s important, because it reinforces the fact that we care.
But there’s , shall I say, more evolved way to deal with failure, and that’s with curiosity. Getting curious about why we failed is the crux of behavior change.
WHY? The big takeaway is this: when (not if) failure happens, replace guilt with curiosity and you’ll be able to identify the trigger that caused the failure to happen in the first place. If you can identify the trigger, you can disrupt the pattern of behavior and make different choices.
Try it and let me know how it goes.