Solving the Wrong Problem
For years, I tried to fix emotional eating with willpower.
White-knuckling it. Telling myself to “get over it.” Trying harder. Telling myself that “next time” I’ll definitely do it better.
It didn’t work because food was never the problem. Food was the symptom.
What I actually needed to learn had nothing to do with food.
It was how to manage stress. How to sit with discomfort without reaching for something to numb it. How to calm my nervous system through breathwork, through other soothing tools like music, walking, connection. How to observe a feeling without becoming it. How to separate me from the craving moving through me.
I’m not my thoughts. I’m not my feelings. And I can make decisions that serve my long-term self even when I don’t feel like it.
Once I learned, practices and mastered those skills and I finally became the person I’d always admired. The one who eats well without obsessing. The one who isn’t white-knuckling it through every meal, feeling like missing out on something.
The problem was never about eating. So trying to willpower my way through it wan’t the solution.
I see this constantly with clients.
They come to me asking for accountability. Motivation. Discipline. They’re convinced that if they could just try harder, have someone watching them, everything would click into place.
Here’s what I’ve learned after 18 years of coaching very accomplished, high-performing people - discipline is not their problem.
What’s actually missing?
Systems where they’re struggling. Structure where there’s chaos. Skills they were never taught. Clarity on what actually matters. And alignment between who they are, what they value, and what ends up on their to-do list.
When we address that everything falls into place.
Not through grinding harder - through working on the root cause.
I stopped believing in discipline a long time ago.
Anything you consistently fail to do isn’t a character flaw. It’s a signal.
A signal that one of 3 things is missing:
The skill of managing your emotions.
The right systems around the desired behavior.
Alignment between who you are and what you’re doing.
What are you struggling with right now? And what would you work on if discipline wasn’t the answer?