Lost keys and problem behaviors

We’ve all lost our keys. It’s frustrating, anxiety inducing, and always happens at the worst possible time. And it always goes the same way, too. We wander around our homes blindly searching under furniture and on top of cabinets and in the freezer. Nothing. 

“Where is the last place I had them?” We retrace our steps. And at some point, through racking our brains and recounting sour past they appear. Ok, so maybe you (me) just finally ask your wife and she finds them for you. But you get the idea.

So what does this have to do with  food and behavior change? Everything is connected.

When we work on behavior change around food there is an assumption that it will just be a magic wand that we wave and life changes. Instead, at least with my practice, it looks a lot like school. We are going to work on written and thinking exercises, stimulating both the emotional and cognitive pieces required to create lasting change. And one such tool looks a lot like finding my keys.

When analyzing behavior it’s important to find links between our problem behaviors and the triggers that inform them. For behaviors do not occur in the moment as it might feel. No, they instead happen minutes or hours or even days before. We build up to our problem behaviors.

Ideally, we will identify our triggering moment early on. From there we link our triggering moment to our problem behavior. But what if we can’t identify our trigger? That’s where we work backwards. If we can’t figure out the last place we had our keys we just start going backwards through our day. Eventually we will find them.

So next time you engage in problematic eating behaviors, identify your triggering moment. If you are unable, work backwards, linking each moment prior to the more current. Find your trigger and link it to your current behavior. Create awareness.

And if all else fails, ask your significant other. At least that’s what works for me.