If you read my last post you’ll know I’m on a journey to greater self-discipline. It’s not so much about getting rid of bad habits as it is starting to create a series of micro accomplishments for myself throughout the day. My logic: eventually enough of these little victories, in aggregate, will snowball into bigger victories. That’s the overall goal here anyways.

To build self-discpline I’ve started tracking a couple key habits related to my food consumption behavior. I’m a stress eater who feels the need to eat even when I’m not hungry. Snacking is my way of procrastinating from doing difficult tasks while simultaneously pumping endorphins through my brain. The problem with this strategy heretofore is that this food habit is literally putting me in debt, not to mention adding to my waistline. Even when I’m stressed, I can’t just keep running out to Milk Bar–literally in my backyard–and buy a $6 micro slice of Crack Pie. 

One of the habits I’m trying to change is to stop getting take out food. To stop buying croissants at the coffee shop, or mac and cheese from the Whole Foods hot bar. That’s why I’ve started rigorously packing my lunch every morning before I got to work. My lunch box dissuades me from going out to buy food, plus it’s a great excuse to get out of peer pressure situations with coworkers.
My plan for this week was to focus on this particular goal. I made it halfway through the week without incident. But on Thursday I forgot my lunch. Everything unraveled from there. 

As soon as I got off the metro I knew I needed breakfast. I popped into Whole Foods on my way to work and grabbed my usual: am egg and cheese sandwich. For $2.99, it’s hard to beat.

Swipe.

After three back-to-back meetings, it was lunch time. I didn’t actually feel hungry but I felt like I was supposed to be hungry. We had just gotten out of our meetings with another meeting looming in the afternoon. Now was the chance to grab sustanance for the rest of the day. My coworker is unfamiliar with DC’s amazing fast casual scene, so of course no one batted an eyelash when I volunteered a trip to Sweetgreen. 

Swipe.

After another meeting and we were in the afternoon lull. I had no urgent tasks to complete and found myself bored. It’s no surprise I began craving something sweet so I sneaked to the candy jar a grabbed a couple Hershey Kisses. (This was on top of two small cookies I had had earlier in the morning, mind you). The small morsels of chocolate weren’t enough though. I felt starved. That’s when I noticed that while at this time in the day I’m usually on water bottle #2, in this moment, I wasn’t even halfway through my first water bottle. My mind was telling me I was hungry while my body was actually begging me for water.

The faux hunger pangs were enough to justify popping in to a coffee shop on my way to the metro to go home. I didn’t need it, but the Nutella brioche knot next to the pastry case had me sold.

Swipe.

I was supposed to go for a run when I got home, but all I wanted to do was eat. Instead of running I went with a friend to the soft launch of a new shop in our neighborhood. There was mostly champagne and nothing of substance at this shindig so of course we mosied next door to Shake Shack. I had food in my fridge at home but if there is one thing I love more than anything else in the universe, it is Shake Shack.

Swipe.

To be honest, I’ve never really paid attention in this level of detail to the progression of my day before. I’ve never had an intentional thought about why I do some of the things I do. Once I removed my intention for the day–eating my packed lunch–however, it quickly became apparent what was happening. One little defeat snowballed into a series of little defeats. In aggregate those little defeats triggered a bigger mental defeat that led me down a path where I began buying food for the sake of eating.

This, right here, is where most of our mindless consumption habits begin. Whether it’s food or shopping, we get to a point of doing something for the sake of doing it, even when it provides us no benefit at all. I forgot to bring my lunch and it unraveled the cadence of my day. My mind created justifications for why I needed things—why I needed sweets, why I needed to spend money on food items I didn’t actually need. By the time I got the Nutella brioche, I had convinced myself that I’d already fallen off the wagon for the day, what’s another swipe of the card going to matter?

But that’s exactly why this habit challenge is so important. I want to get to a point where, even if I have one bad moment on a particular day, it doesn’t unravel the rest of the day–or the entire week for that matter. I want to develop the stamina and discipline to change the rules and conditions under which my mind plays games with itself. I am my own worst enemy here; continuing to create justify bad behavior gets me no where.

That’s why I think we should rethink the brown bag. Bringing your lunch to work or school isn’t just about being frugal or trying to slim down your waistline (although those are certainly good benefits). It’s about creating a mental framework for self-discipline that is embodied in a physical item. Packing your lunch is simply a way to facilitate habit transformation. 

Even if it’s just a pb & j, you should pack your lunch every morning for a week or two. Just to see what happens.