You’ve heard from your mother that too much of a good thing can be bad for you. Maybe it was put that everything should happen in moderation.
Honestly, it’s a good mantra to follow. Don’t you agree?
During the summer months, I find it’s much easier for me to eat healthy. Why? I’m not tempted by my second favorite treats… The holiday Reese’s peanut butter cups.
Reese’s releases special peanut butter cups to commemorate special holidays throughout the year. There’s the Reese’s peanut butter eggs, the Reese’s peanut butter hearts, the Reese’s peanut butter pumpkins, and the Reese’s peanut butter Christmas trees.
If you haven’t seen these things, you should. They’re amazing. Once you’ve seen them, you need to eat one or two… Or in my case 20.
There’s nothing wrong with these treats. They’re tasty and they’re fun.
As long as you moderate your consumption of this junk food.
Moderation Is Hard
So many people struggle with moderation. Whether it’s eating in moderation, drinking in moderation, or working in moderation.
Moderation requires a lot of energy. To have successful moderation, one must:
Have self-control
Know when to say enough
Be able to move on
Instead, we’re often taught that we need more of everything. We deserve it and we should have it.
When we think along these lines, moderation gets thrown out the window. And we over-indulge.
That’s why we see so many overweight, workaholic, or alcoholic people. They’re giving into their primal urge to indulge. And that makes moderation hard.
Learn Moderation
While moderation is difficult, it’s not impossible to achieve.
You can go to the bar and have a single drink. No one is forcing you to take the next drink.
You can go to Meijer and buy a bag of Reese’s peanut butter eggs and only eat one. No one is shoving number 2 or 3 down your throat.
You can go to McDonald’s or Burger King and eat a single burger. No one is demanding you purchase the extra large value meal.
You can watch a single episode of the new Sherlock Holmes show Elementary. No one is forcing you to binge watch an entire season.
This type of moderation doesn’t come easy. You have to work at it.
Learning moderation means denying yourself what you want when you want it. Learning moderation means knowing when to quit. Learning moderation means getting away from the things that you want.
But how do you do this? I’ve found these steps to be helpful in maintaining moderation in my life:
Get accountability: The many times I’ve struggled in my life have been the times I’ve lacked accountability. Whether it was with another person or through an app that tracked my progress, having something there to hold me accountable made me more aware of my lack of moderation.
Your accountability partner can hold you to the standard you know you can. He’ll tell you to shape up. He’ll tell you that you’re doing a good job. He’ll even tell you it’s okay when you screw up.
But he won’t let you quit. That’s the great thing about an accountability partner. He’s there to hold you to your standard!
Get away: No, you don’t take a vacation to find moderation. But you do need to get away from the things you’re tempted to over-consume.
You might need to get up and away from your desk after 8 hours of work. Maybe it’s putting your tasty treats in an out of the way location. Or could it be you need to set a timer for the TV and shut it off once it goes off?
Setting boundaries and sticking to them will help you moderate the tasks you struggle with.
Get another interest: Sometimes we over-indulge and fail to moderate because we don’t have any other interests or hobbies.
Discovering something that sparks your passions can make moderating other bad habits easy. You’re replacing something bad with something good.
However, don’t let your new interests become so engrossing you have trouble moderating it as well.
Moderation is hard. But it’s worth it in the end.
Moderation allows you to enjoy good things without hurting yourself. Don’t be scared of moderation, embrace it.
Please note: I reserve the right to delete comments that are offensive or off-topic.