Self-Control

Do you have a favorite snack or cookies or chips? How much do you eat it? Are you always aware of the serving suggestion that is usually printed on the package? Do you always obey the suggestion? Do you take it into consideration when you start eating your favourite snack?

When the snack is too yummy, not necessarily healthy, to be honest with you, I do not care about this suggestion. I often ate them up without considering how much I overconsumed the snack, how much my calories intake especially with chips or cookies.

A few weeks ago I bought healthy cookies. It is made of variety of nuts or seeds – pumkin seeds, sunflower seeds and sliced almond. A colleague told me that the cookies was too yummy that she could not stop eating them. She gave me a little piece to taste, and she was right. It tasted so good.

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Realising I would do the same as her and thinking that my self-control especially over this yummy snack was too weak, I had an idea to make a self-control challenge. I promised to eat one piece a day, not more than that. This challenge was for myself. When I shared this idea to my colleagues, none of them took it seriously. They might think that I would fail, not seeing my point.

There were fifteen pieces of cookies in one package. I thought I would take 15 days to finish at least. I ate the cookies in the evening for a self-reward when I arrived home from work. I ate a piece each day by chewing each bite mindfullly. There was mindfullness in each bite and each evening. The enjoyment last much longer.

I made it!

I kept the commitment in 15 days. There was a very good feeling in me after completing this challenge successfully.

This little challenge will allow us to develop gratefulness and joy, if we do it with purpose and mindfulness. A grateful heart is a happy heart.

Sometimes we need to be a liitle bit strick to ourselves. This is to train the self to be more patient or discipline. This is a self-control.