The Cookie Jar Method: How to Get Through the Mental Plateaus of Your Weight Loss Goals
It’s sweeter when it’s homemade.
It’s no surprise to know that there are times in life when we simply don’t want to answer our calling that day, to do the things we need to do in order to move one step closer to our goal only to end up not doing it.
It’s not because we don’t want it, it’s because we’re equally trying to unlearn years of bad habits we’ve forged, and replace them with ones that better fit the identity we want to create.
It’s easy to motivate ourselves in times when we’re feeling good when everything goes our way. However, the real test is in those moments where the sheer momentum of not wanting to follow through with our goals is at its loudest, where instant gratification is at its most tempting can true changes be made.
As much as we tell ourselves that it’s okay to revert to our old ways because it makes us feel comfortable, what we in fact really want at that moment is certainty.
We want certainty because it’s one of your most basic human needs, we want to feel secure and safe about where we are and where we’re going in life.
When we feel certain, it’s a resounding feedback that the path we’re taking is authentic and one we should continue to take.
However, in order to have a life filled with certainty, we run the risk of it staying the same, caught up in the same hamster wheel time and time again, unless we change the script of what certainty means to us.
Enter: the Cookie Jar Method.
The Cookie Jar Method
Created by the former navy seal, decorated ultra-marathoner, best-selling author, and freak athlete in his own right, David Goggins, the Cookie Jar Method is a method in which you draw from your past badassery to get you through tough times.
The biggest problem with stepping into the unknown and the uncomfortable is that we tend to forget who we are and what we’re capable of, but using the Cookie Jar Method, we can use our own empowering memories from our childhood or recent years to fuel us through this agonizing moments.
Whether it’s a mental cookie jar you visualize or a physical cookie jar, as Nietzsche says if our why is strong enough, then we can bear any how.
Our mind once aligned with action can become driven and it’s harder to do so when we’re fighting ourselves.
Thoughts of quitting arise because we haven’t taken the time to prepare better alternatives in our decision-making.
Like weight-training, the more we work that muscle of preparing our minds for the obstacles ahead, the better equipped we’ll be to overcome them.
The Medieval Mind
The mind is a medieval motherf*****. It is constantly against you. It is the only thing in the history of the f****** world that shows up on time…every time. It has the tactical advantage over you. It knows your fears, it knows your insecurities, it knows everything about you. It might be the only thing that knows everything about you. You have to know about IT! It is going to show up when you don’t want it to show up. It is going to show up in the worst time possible. It is going to say “take the easy road, take the easy way out”. You got to learn your brain like the your brain is learned you.
-David Goggins
Our mind knows everything about us, it has the tactical advantage over us before we start. That’s why we need to learn how our brain operates, especially in times of stress.
When we go through the turmoils of life, especially taking on new responsibilities and goals, doubts and feelings of insecurity are bound to arise, because we’re doing something that goes against our normal hardwiring.
Back in our hunter-gatherer times, the fight or flight part of our brain would flair up as a survival mechanism to keep us safe from unwanted predators, sending cortisol into our system to try and get us back to that safe place.
Nowadays, thankfully we’re not fending off saber tooth tigers, but the chemical experience we feel when we’re stressed and overwhelmed is still very much real. It’s biochemically built in us to feel this way because the message we send to our brain is that we’re in some form of danger because we’re feeling these overwhelmed feelings, when in reality, we’re just battling our cravings for a family feast Dominos deal for one!
Preparation is Key
We don’t rise to the level of our expectations; we fall to the level of our training.
- Archilochus
There are going to be bumps along the way in any undertaking we venture into, and most times it’s because we’ve failed to prepare on how to overcome the obstacles ahead.
Even if it takes as many cookies as you need, preparing yourself with these badass reminders of who you are in advance by putting them at the forefront of your mind, trains you to draw upon them when you need them the most.
There’s no need to wait to feel deserving or confident, you have an entire backlog behind you that you are neglecting.
The further you go with this way of thinking, and the better quality of life you have, the better the quality the cookie will be.
Go back to that feeling of empowerment from your past. Imagine and feel that certainty and plant yourself in this new behavior you want to mold and experience.
Life will ask us hard questions at times, making us question and doubt ourselves in the process. If we can equip ourselves with quality answers of who we truly are in advance, then we’ll be better able to go beyond the limitations we’ve imposed on ourselves and make way for a better life to enter.
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