It’s getting cold here in Burlington, Canada, so what did I do?
I went directly to all my favourite comfort foods.
Breads, cupcakes, rich meaty meals.
And now my jeans have shrunk!
And my tummy rolls over a couple of seconds after I turn over in bed.
“What is that about??!”, I asked myself.
Aha! It’s that temptation thing again.
And then I remembered that I
actually do know how to deal with temptation.
The real problem is that we get fixated on the temptation.
It is the only thing we see,
the only thing we smell, hear and even taste!
And we want it NOW!
How do you deal with THAT?
Watch the video or read the transcript below: (hint: the video is funny!)
Tips for managing temptation
Oscar Wilde said, “The only thing to do with temptation is to yield to it”, but I believe there’s another option. So here you are, it’s holiday time, the table is laden with all of your favorite foods, some of which you may have even cooked yourself, (talking about myself here again).
You really want to dive in and all you can see is that lovely delicious stuff and you can practically taste it on your tongue before you’ve eaten it. How are you not going to just yield to it as Oscar Wilde said?
When you’re in the store, or you are behind at work and you know you need to be saving money but you really want those things right in front of you. What do you do if you’re on line doing the same thing?
Here are some tips you can use.
First, breathe deeply. Breathe deeply a couple of times because you end up giving in to temptation when you act on it really quickly. If you stand back and give yourself a couple of moments to think, that can be the secret to your success.
Second, after you’ve breathed, go away from the temptation. I go into the bathroom. I sit on the toilet. (that maybe too much information). But I remember while I’m sitting on the toilet what my real goal is here. Am I working towards becoming a better person? Am I trying to lose weight? Am I getting into shape? What do I really want? Get back in touch with what is really important.
If you haven’t ever talked to yourself about what’s really important, you might want to do that before you confront the holiday temptations.
The third suggestion for resisting temptation is to go have a glass of water and think about something else. The moment will pass and that’s really, really key.
Temptation only ever happens in the moment. So if you have a couple of tips for how to forget what’s going on in front of you and think about something else, timing off to reconnect with what’s important to you, that’s going to help you with all kinds of temptations whether it’s buying, eating, or anything else you can think of.
I hope these tips have been helpful! Have a look at other Shelle’s Top Tips and enjoy the holidays. http://www.ShellesTopTips.com
How do you deal with temptation? You can leave your comments below.
Merci pour ces 3 trucs éclairs pour résister à la tentation!
Je vous adore Shelle!
Love this post Shelle! Will be sharing with a few of my tempted family!!
Personally I get my self busy and try and stay away from the temptation…(I try to have something to do at night-like a meeting… so I am not sitting idol. The fridge is way to tempting to me!)
Excellent tip, Shelle – as always.
One of my clients did a variation on the “make yourself wait” approach. He’d set his alarm for 5AM, to go for a run. On a dark chilly winter’s morning, there was nothing he wanted to do less than climb into running gear and dash into the cold, when he had a warm bed and wife just next to him.
So he did two things:
1) He put the alarm clock across the room, so he couldn’t just turn it off quickly or with minimal effort.
2) Before turning it off, he forced himself to wait ten seconds. That was usually all it took to get out of “sleep some more” mode decide to go ahead and go for a run.
I suspect he had a third step, called “placate wife who does not appreciate the alarm going off for >10 seconds at 0500 every freakin’ morning.
This, as always, is GREAT. Simple and clear ideas are most often far more valuable than verbose and complex ones. Among the things I love about you is your clarity. Thank you, Shelle!
For me, what works best is as you said, to change the thought channel to my higher goal, and dim the messages of the momentary “want”.