Why do we sabotage our efforts?

Maybe you are one of the fortunate ones who doesn't, but after making a promise to give up sugar an action of a loved one that was beyond my control, and had nothing to do with me, forced me to go into the fridge and have a couple twix bars for revenge. Really? Forced me? Revenge? Yeah, right. I consciously got off the computer, walked into the kitchen, opened the fridge and took out the candy and ate it, all the while thinking "there! take that"! Wow. Naturally after that I felt like sh*t so I ate two hershey kisses and a couple of handfuls of Captain Crunch (which I don't usually buy but did to wean myself off the candy - worked well, don't you think?)

Why do we sabotage ourselves when what we are doing is reacting to something we can't control?

After being completely frustrated with myself I had to google what sugar does to your body, your mind, and your health to further exacerbate my feelings of guilt and loss of self, and came across a picture of a 30-ish woman that someone had "aged" to show what she would look like after 10 years of smoking, another of eating sugar, another of eating healthy. Talk about horror! You don't know what you're going to look like when you get older but if you did you probably wouldn't put into your mouth the nasty things you do now.

It needs to stop.

I read on writing forums about this happening too. Someone posts something and 300 people love it then one person responds "eh, not so much" and the writer goes into a funk wondering why she wastes all that time writing, writing, writing, when no one appreciates it anyway so the pen gets capped and the writing pad gets shelved and the writer forlornly decides to take up Zumba hoping she can prove to that one person that she is good at something. Naturally the Zumba doesn't work so she tries to grow a bonsai and gets a goth haircut to reinvent herself until she gets so lost she decides to write it all down and after reading it realizes "hey, this is good, really, really, good!" and pulls the cap off the pen and blows the dust off the writing pad and confirms what she knew all along, that not only could she write, she was good at it. Really good.

So the next time you feel frustrated in your writing or your attempts to quit sugar, smoking, swearing, or watching tv, remember that ghost you are rebelling against really doesn't care whether or not you succeed, so save yourself some grief and rather than wasting hours or days in pity parties, cup your hands and whisper the annoyance into it, then open your hands and blow and let it float away. Protect yourself from what is out of your realm of control.

Then you can write it all down.