Day 38, Get Curious

Last winter break, I surprisingly stayed in my maintenance range the whole time. It blew my mind. I am pretty certain that for the first time as an adult I had not packed on several pounds worth of holiday food and treats. It was amazing. However, I can tell you right now, that I set myself up for success for the 2022 holiday season. How? I got curious. 

Curiosity is powerful. Curiosity is telling yourself that you don’t have all the answers but you are willing to learn. Curiosity is what takes a great deal of shame out of failures and instead allows us to approach it with a willingness to learn. Curiosity will also allow you to squeeze powerful lessons out of successes instead of simply celebrating and moving on.

In order to guide some healthy curiosity, I used the thought model developed by Brook Castillo. The thought model shows that our circumstances create our thoughts, our thoughts create our emotions, our emotions guide our actions, and our actions create our results. 

During the Holidays my circumstances were that there were many treats and opportunities to eat food that was not part of my personal protocol. My thoughts were that this wasn’t a problem and I could plan to eat them or I could simply enjoy making memories (the food wasn’t important). This made me feel happy and content no matter what I was or was not eating. The action I ended up taking was planning for the treats I ate and then eating on plan. The result was that my body weight stayed within the 120-130lb range that I like. 

Now, this is the same approach we take when we are struggling. We ask ourselves, what are the circumstances (the raw facts), what are our thoughts, what emotions do they cause, what actions do we take out of those emotions, and what are the results of those actions. 

It is that information that guides our journey. Some thoughts empower growth and health, others take us off the path we want. We have to be willing to learn and change if we want to find success.
​Proverbs 12:1, NLT, says,
To learn, you must love discipline;
    it is stupid to hate correction. 

Journal prompt: Pick the last time you had an obvious failure or success. Work through the thought model: What were the circumstances? What did you think about them? What did those thoughts make you feel? What actions did those emotions guide? What were the results of your actions? What will you do next time this circumstance is repeated? 

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