What? I want cookies, you must be saying! YES, I want cookies.  I wonder if it’s the rain and the fact that I am stuck in the house and am wanting to be comforted by “comfort food”.  I remember my mom always used to cook and drink at the same time!  Thinking back I used to drink and cook as well!  Here’s the thing, I am having some CRAZY cravings today.  I want to bake cookies and friggin’ eat them!  NOW!  I don’t have the ingredients to make them though!  So there …. you stupid cravings!

I thought, why am I having these so strong today?  I have been doing so well! I still haven’t figured out why at this point. The last few days I have had hardly any cravings at all. I can say it doesn’t matter at this point, but it really does.  The reason why is so that I can be prepared next time something like this trigger happens.  Something happened today to trigger the craving, or the habit.  I find out what the trigger is and I change it, therefore changing the habit.

Here’s how it works.  I have read several books on habits and if you have created a reading list this year, put this book on your reading list.  “The Power of Habit” by Charles Duhigg.  It taught me why I do what I do in business and in my personal everyday life.  It was a fascinating book because our brain creates habits so that it doesn’t have to think about something every single time we go to do it.  Remember when you first learned how to drive a car?  It was a whole thought process.  Starting the car, putting it in drive and then having to apply the brakes.  What about backing up?  That was an ordeal.  Once you did it over and over again, it became a habit, and this is what happens when you pull up to your destination and don’t really remember the drive there because your thoughts were somewhere else while you were driving.

So, my trigger or my “cue” is what sets off the loop of the habit.  It consists of a cue, a routine, and a reward.  So, my “method of operand i” is normally to bake a TON of peanut butter cookies every week, and especially if it’s comfort food weather.  This morning in San Diego (after we recovered from the flash flood yesterday, and another today) the weather is TOTAL comfort food weather.  So, that’s my cue. My routine is to bake the cookies and eat them, and feel better.  Feeling better is my reward.  That’s the loop.  HA! I just figured it out!

Here in lies the issue. How do I change the weather if that is the cue? Pray? It all boils down to the fact that I get to make a choice.  I stopped working and came on here to write about it because the cravings were NOT PASSING.  I made a choice to do what has been working for me for the past 10 days.  This blog! I will be accountable to myself and this blog.  So, I may check in later too!

I hope you read the book, knowledge is power, and having power give you a choice.  I am responsible for my choices and when I make positive choices I get positive consequences.  I am going to make a positive choice to get back to work now.

It’s 3:26 PM on January 6, 2015, and I have NOT consumed sugar today.

Until later………