I Keep Telling Myself I'm Going To Fail And Then I Do. How Do I Get Out Of This Cycle Of Doubt?

February 1, 2009 -- Question: I keep telling myself I'm going to fail and then I do. How do I get out of this cycle of doubt?

Answer: The cycle of self-doubt is a real problem for many dieters, and it comes about in the following way. People go on a diet, let's say they buy a popular diet book and they lose weight. People generally give credit to the book or the author of the book for their weight loss. They tell their friends and you have a best-seller on your hands.

But then when people regain the weight, instead of blaming the book or the author of the book, as they probably should, they blame themselves for not being able to stay with it.

So, the dieters place themselves in this sort of this lose-lose proposition. They lose because they don't give themselves credit when they do well, and they blame themselves when they don't.

So reversing this tendency could be very helpful.

So, it's very important for dieters, from the very beginning, to give themselves credit when they do well.

You can pretend you're your own friend: pat yourself on the back, give yourself some laudatory comments, praise yourself for doing well, because you deserve it. And then that can help erase the self-doubt, can give you confidence that you're the one who's responsible for losing weight.

It's not the program, it's not the book, it's not the vice, it's not the pill, it's you. And once you take credit for those sort of things, that can give you the sort of confidence that's necessary to sustain the motivation and the effort in the long term.