Week 5 / Creating Ease
This common shift from boundless curiosity to narrow determination is at the heart of why the traditional approach to goals keeps on letting us down; it impedes our creativity and prevents us from seeing and seizing new opportunities.
Le Cunff, Anne-Laure. Tiny Experiments: How to Live Freely in a Goal-Obsessed World (p. 28). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Making Peace
with Flexibility
There are so many things that shape our food choices. Culture, community, celebration, environment, and personal preference all have a seat at the table. And they should. We've never worked with a client who wanted a rigid eating plan that made no room for joy, connection, or spontaneity.
But there's a difference between wanting flexibility and actually giving yourself permission to have it. Especially around celebrations, many people carry guilt or shame for enjoying food that's been labeled "bad" or "off-plan." That lingering moral overlay can take the joy out of the moment—even when the food is exactly what we wanted.
I meant to do that
So how do we soften that inner judgment and still honor our health goals? It starts by being specific in advance. Flexibility doesn’t mean winging it; it means deciding how you want to show up in moments that matter.
Is the whole weekend up for grabs, or just the Saturday dinner party? Can you keep breakfast simple and aligned even during a holiday week? Do you want to include alcohol or nostalgic foods—and if so, what’s the frequency that feels satisfying, not excessive?
There’s no one answer. But choosing ahead of time gives you freedom and structure. You stop thinking of these foods as slip-ups and start seeing them as part of a plan that respects both your values and your preferences.
Flexible but how flexible?
In the video linked here, we walk through an approach to weekends—those looser, less structured stretches of time that can easily derail progress if we haven’t thought them through. You’ll learn how to build in flexibility without abandoning your goals, and more importantly, how to drop the guilt that tends to creep in when you feel “off.”
You’re never off when you’ve made a plan that includes space for celebration, connection, and enjoyment. The key is being intentional about what that space looks like—so you can show up fully, in both your goals and your life.
A discerning impulse
We all have our go-to temptations—sweet, crunchy, salty—and it can be tough to make clear-headed choices when one of those shows up. There’s no shortage of foods that check those boxes, which means it’s entirely possible to indulge at every meal without even noticing how often it happens. One way to work with this (instead of against it) is to get specific about what really does it for you. Not just “I have a sweet tooth,” but what kind of sweet tooth? In this video, we walk through a simple way to narrow the field—so you’re not responding to every craving, just the ones that are truly worth it.