# Mastering Your Inner Saboteur: A Key to Building Healthy Habits
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Chapter 1: Understanding Your Inner Saboteur
Achieving consistency in your fitness goals often means confronting the troublesome voice in your head that holds you back.
We often blame our 'busy lives' for failing to get fit, but the truth is that it largely boils down to our Inner Saboteur. This inner critic is universally recognized—everyone has one lurking in their mind. This is the voice that:
- Gets you into trouble over the years
- Fuels your anger and impatience
- Encourages poor choices, like that extra drink
- Always craves indulgence and shies away from effort
If this inner voice were a friend, you would have ended that relationship long ago. Instead, it remains a constant presence, interrupting your plans to feel and look your best, often derailing your progress every few weeks.
However, by learning to manage your Inner Saboteur, you can finally adhere to your health and fitness objectives.
Why Is Consistency So Hard?
In a recent survey of 2,500 subscribers to my weekly newsletter, I inquired about their primary challenges in achieving fitness, weight loss, and overall health. Surprisingly, the most common issue was not about exercise or diet; it was:
"I simply can’t maintain consistency."
Do you find yourself in a similar situation? You know what you should be doing to eat well and stay active, yet you struggle to follow through consistently enough to see real results.
From my observations, it's often this Inner Saboteur that prevents us from sticking to plans that we know are effective if only we could commit to them.
Interestingly, this Inner Saboteur has a scientific counterpart. One of my clients, a neurosurgeon in Ireland, explained that our emotional center, the Amygdala, plays a crucial role here. In contrast, the Prefrontal Cortex (PFC) is responsible for logical thinking and long-term planning.
Patients with damage to their PFC often experience chaotic lives because they act solely on emotion without the balancing influence of rational thought. Fortunately, most of us don't face such extreme circumstances, but we do contend with an ongoing internal struggle between our rational side and our Inner Saboteur. (Fans of "The Chimp Paradox" will recognize this internal conflict.)
Managing Your Inner Saboteur
To cultivate consistency in your health journey, it’s crucial to perceive your Inner Saboteur as a separate entity. Avoid self-blame for derailing your diet or skipping workouts; instead, recognize that it's a matter of managing your Inner Saboteur.
You may think, "I’ll just ignore that voice," but you know from experience that it’s not that simple. This voice is loud, persistent, and it won't stop until it gets its way. Thus, we need strategies to appease this inner critic while making genuine progress.
Gamifying Healthy Habit Formation
Transforming your health journey into a game is one effective strategy. Compete against yourself to "win," allowing you to feel accomplished and motivated. Your rational PFC might argue that this approach is trivial, but your Inner Saboteur thrives on such incentives.
By gamifying your efforts, you can encourage your Inner Saboteur to:
- Eat healthier
- Exercise regularly
- Engage in beneficial health behaviors
So how do you implement gamification in your fitness routine?
- Create Chains or Streaks: Establish a template of weekly activities to improve your fitness, like going to bed by 10 PM, not eating after 6 PM, exercising daily, and avoiding desserts and alcohol.
- Track Your Progress: Monitor how many consecutive days you stick to this plan and reward yourself accordingly. For instance:
- After 6 consecutive days: Treat yourself to dessert or a drink on day seven—no streak, no treat.
- After 4 weeks: Reward yourself with a $100 Amazon gift card—again, no streak, no winnings.
- After 3 months: Enjoy a weekend getaway with a partner—break the streak, and you're staying home.
This method aligns the motivations of your PFC and Inner Saboteur for the same goals, albeit with different incentives.
Engaging Your Inner Saboteur
Think about how you can gamify your habits to create consistency in your diet, workouts, and lifestyle.
- What delightful desserts can you reward yourself with after six successful days?
- What fun items can you purchase after a month of success?
- Where would you love to go for a weekend escape in a few months?
Utilize your rational side to develop a plan, while keeping your Inner Saboteur engaged by playing the game. Tracking your progress on a traditional wall calendar or using apps like "Don't Break the Chain" or "Streaks" can be helpful.
Yes, even I have an Inner Saboteur to manage!
I specialize in helping individuals over 40 become fitter, healthier, and happier. You can start your weight loss journey without drastically altering your life by downloading my free "No Weird Sh*t Diet" guide right here.
