When does YES mean NO and NO mean YES? Every time! Whenever you say yes or no to something, be it something to eat, how you spend your money, or how you spend your time, you are saying yes or no to a different choice, often several choices.
Yet, we often convince ourselves that we don't have a choice at all, much less several choices. We create such emotional stories to attach to some choices that we make them impossible to choose – not in objective reality, but our personal reality.
It can be as simple as not wanting to offend the host or the chef – be it our spouse, a friend, or business contact. They've made something we don't want in our diet, put too much on our plate, or they are the encouraging type: “Please, try this, try that, oh you've got to have some of this!”
We quickly create a choice structure that only satisfies someone else. Choosing not to eat is too painful – we might offend, or start a fight, or put ourselves in an uncomfortable situation of sticking up for ourselves and our goals. We say YES to the chef or host and NO to our diet, our health, our long-term goal. When we mentally cut off choices – meaning NOT eating would never be a choice – that we build dangerous thinking and harmful habits. Learning to say YES to ourselves takes time when it means saying no to someone or something else. A realization that there are more choices available than 'eat or create an offensive, emotional disaster' is required. A realization only comes through practical explanation.
Consider these choices:
A. Choose to think ahead of time
Talk to your spouse or friend ahead of time to discuss the menu and thank them for helping you reach your goals; OR, prepare to eat what you don't want by eating differently beforehand. I always encourage communication as the first option.
B. Choose to stick up for yourself
Take smaller portions, or skip what you don't want. Don't assume you'll offend the chef. If you know you're dealing with someone particularly touchy, offer to take some home with you for later. If they get really pushy, just say no, and either let them know the real reason you're skipping foods (honesty is the best policy), or simply say you're not feeling well – you're stomach's acting up because of whatever made up reason.
C. Choose to bring an ally
When two of you are on the same page, its much easier to hold your ground, and prevents you from being singled out for shame or undue pressure.
D. Choose to be proactive
Invite them first, or take the household cooking into your own hands. Nothing like doing it yourself to make sure you get what you need. Just remember they are now in your prior position, and let them eat, or not, what they choose!
E. Choose to live with the consequences
Sometimes we will run into situations where we just have to grit our teeth and go forward if we want to get to where we want to go. If we continually base our choices by painting ourselves into the corner of concern for others – what they will think or what they will do – we will end up either where others want us to go or where we THINK they want us to go, as opposed to where WE want to go.
YES is NO and NO is YES. Choices abound. Even the most extreme circumstances offer choices, they may simply be harder choices than others. Eating is a great example of this, in that when we think those choices are unimportant, we find the results carry great weight (pun intended).
Beyond our food intake, we find ourselves limiting our choices in exercise, finances, careers, relationships – often feeling stuck or hopeless. By not learning to see more choices, and accept our responsibility to make them, we cripple our future by atrophying our power of choice in the present.
Train your mind to see multiple choices, and multiple outcomes. Make your goals more important to you than other people's goals for you. Don't be afraid to be a YES man, because you're always saying not. Don't be afraid to say NO, because you're always saying YES to something at the same time.
The choices exist. Its up to you to see them, and choose them.
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