Better Self Control

I think we all go through it, times when we are struggling with self control. Thankfully for the moment I've gotten better at increasing my self control!

Self control isn't easy because it often means that it is something that we enjoy, but can get addicted to. I'm sure people don't need self control for all things, but there are certainly some things that we can struggle with and it seems to vary from time to time.

I've struggled with self control over some things in my life for a while. There have been periods of different things to gain self control over such as playing excessive video games when you are a kid but when you become an adult, especially a parent, you tend to give those things up (if you want to be a decent parent that is..) in favor of the benefits we get when we don't struggle with that. I am getting better at holding my self control for a particular topic or habit over the last few months.

I think two of the main ones I have struggled with is drinking alcohol and over consumption of sweets and have thankfully gained some good ground over those two! Certainly there can be more improvements in those categories but I am celebrating the wins when I can get them.

By alcohol consumption, I am not talking black-out drunk or even drunk at all. I would drink one beer a night or one generously filled wine glass a night but the issue I struggled with was doing that for too many days and you end up not realizing but 2 weeks have gone by and you've drank every night. I'm a light drinker these days, so doing that would make me feel relaxed just enough that it was enjoyable but also not miserable the next day. Having a kid with high energy makes you appreciate NOT being hungover way more after having a drink the night before lol. I realized that I was developing a minor addiction to it and I needed to be careful. By the time I realized it, it had been maybe 4 weeks of drinking almost every night, though with some missed.

That was no good! So I knew that I needed to really focus and practice self control to get rid of that shit! I celebrated recently the fact that I went many weeks without consuming any alcohol and then the other night I had one beer to see if I could keep it under control. I was glad that I had the one, but didn't feed the "urge" to have one the following night. I let the beers sit in the fridge for a week before I drank the next one! I was excited about that, meaning I was gaining back my self control. Since then, I drank the other 2 beers but it's been 2 weeks since I drank anything. I'm hoping and thinking that I can get back to just enjoying a drink every now and then without getting stuck in a habit.

My other struggle is certainly consuming too much sweets.. Who doesn't love a good fucking slice of cake?! I don't know anyone who would make such a mistake!

I love getting a nice donut or bakery pastry every week or so, but the issue with that is I ended up starting to gain a pretty good amount of weight! I'm thankful that I'm not overweight, though I am heading in that direction if I don't keep up the self control. I went a few different times where I was in the situation I would normally get a donut or pastry and I didn't do it! I was definitely proud of that because it's soooo good and easy to just get one of them. However, there are a lot of things my wife and I are finding out which make sense when you think about it, but not until you get hit with some cold hard facts do you realize change is needed.

Although there are still challenges with both of these, I have made other progress on different things I've been struggling with and I think it's important that we try to not only have self control but work to improve it, so we can add things to the list!

What about you, have you had any improvements in your self control with some parts of your life? Let me know in the comments!