Important lessons can be learned from the suckier parts of life.
This week I was on-air at Mental Health TV providing my thoughts, as a Registered Psychotherapist, on this article:
I have clearly been thinking about it ever since Monday. So, here are my thoughts….
Let’s Start With the Word “Sacrifice”
Merriam-websters Dictionary’s entry for the definition of sacrifice is
to suffer loss of, give up, renounce, injure, or destroy especially for an ideal, belief, or end
In the simplest of terms, I agree that we choose to give things up in order to facilitate a new state. It is an unrealistic expectation to believe that you can effect real change in one’s life without doing a single thing differently.
The Complexity of Sacrifice in Achieving Goals
Einstein taught us:
“Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.”
Here’s my struggle. When we apply the notion of “sacrifice” to the process of effecting change in our lives, it has a heavily weighted connotation of losing something to achieve a goal, and that isn’t always (ever?) accurate.
The article mentions, “Goal persistence hinges on the feeling of sacrifice, which arises from considering what was previously foregone to make a goal-consistent decision,” and man, does this statement ring foul to me. It’s SO much more complex than “remember your sacrifice.”
Progress Over Sacrifice: A Gentler Approach
Let’s use the weight-loss context identified in the article to help illustrate my thought process here. The article mentions how the study offered gym-goers a healthy treat and a not-so-healthy treat after they answered researchers’ questions regarding motivation. Depending on the snack the post-workout individuals selected, the study determined whether remembering the sacrifice influenced their snack selection. Okay, the study was able to identify a positive correlation between the two. But.
As a psychotherapist who works with individuals recovering from substance abuse, I often remind them that the seconds, minutes, hours, days, and weeks they don’t use their substance of choice is progress, not sacrifice. Now, recovering from addiction is very different from weight loss, or is it? I don’t think it is.
I’m a realist and pull no punches when it comes to meeting our personal and professional goals, but what happens when we keep focusing on the things we leave behind instead of the new state we are moving toward? I think resentment creeps in and derails the plan.
When we fail to recognize the negative role that “things” (like food, booze, drugs, sex, gambling) play in our lives — damaged relationships, poor physical or mental health, or financial issues) we are doomed to keep repeating the same mistakes. See Einstein.
Progress over sacrifice is a gentler way to do hard things (weight loss, adopt new wellness strategies, improved relationships). I also think we can all be a little more gentle with ourselves these days.
Just my thoughts.
