Getting Rid of “I Can’t” with Intuitive Eating

I have had many clients who are stuck in a negative, diet mentality.  They often come to me with lists of things they can’t do and never mention anything they can do.

I can’t stop dieting.

I can’t lose weight.

I can’t change my eating habits.

I can’t listen to my body.

I can’t exercise.

When a client comes to me with this mindset, I like to tell them a story about my son’s third grade teacher.

For homework one night, my son had to write a list of all the things he can’t do.  Naturally, I thought this assignment made no sense.  Why would his teacher want him to do this?  Shouldn’t he make a list of all the things he can do?  Nonetheless, we still worked on his homework and came up with a list of things he can’t do.

When he came home from school the next day, I asked him what his teacher did with his list of “I can’ts”.  He said his teacher had them march out to the playground, dig a hole and bury their “I can’ts”.

I was astonished.  This is brilliant.

Why didn’t I ever think of this idea for my clients?

Well, now I do use this concept for my clients, and you!

This activity falls right into the practice of eating intuitively.  While you are on your intuitive eating journey, you are working on reframing your mindset.  You are changing the way you think about your body, food and the way you eat.  This activity is a great way to help you solidify why you want to change your mindset.

You can get rid of your “I can’ts” by reframing your mindset.

Change your “I can’ts” to “I am”, “I can”, and “I will”.  Look at them as challenges that you will overcome, which will lead to success.

Here is an example: You can reframe “I can’t exercise” to “It’s a challenge for me to exercise, but perhaps I can start with a 5 minute walk each day”.  By changing exercise to a challenge instead of an “I can’t”, you are recognizing the fact that you can overcome this challenge.

Simply reframing your mindset will help you get “I can’t” out of your vocabulary and you will feel great doing it!!

If you want to learn more about how you can reframe your mindset, you can contact me here.  I am here to help you.