Do you remember the idea that when there is a problem, you need to find a workable solution and then you put all your energy into the solution and never, ever think about the problem again?

I can’t recall who said it first, but it was surely good advice. Do everything you can to find a  solution and then keep your head turned that way. We keep sliding back into worrying the problem like a dog with a bone. Instead, we need to quietly and confidently look forward.

The less you ‘worry the thought’, the easier it becomes to stick to whatever decision you made that will take you to the solution or will help you live the solution. Instead of talking yourself into being unhappy with dieting (or your new liefstyle habits or whatever you want to call it), realise that you’ve plumbed the depths of that problem—probably more than once—and you now need think only of the nuts and bolts of the solution.

So instead of getting caught up in thoughts like “I hate dieting,” “I wish I could eat that, and,”I want sweeties (now!)”, and any other thought that runs through your head at moments like these, you watch each thought as it arises. Look at the thought without the emotion that you have invested in it until now. The less self-talk you indulge around that thought, the better. Instead of talking yourself into being unhappy with your new diet, you simply say, “That’s the way it is now, and it’s a good thing,” and move on. Or if your automatic thinking process comes up with, “I usually have chocolate at this time of day,” now you respond to that thought with the happy realisation that “Luckily I don’t do that any more.”

You don’t  deny that you had thoughts of the lolly bottle. You definitely don’t venture into “Should I or shouldn’t I?”or “Just one wouldn’t hurt” territory. You simply acknowledge that the thought has occurred and you are doing nothing about it because you have already moved on to the solution, even if that pesky little thought hasn’t realised it yet.

Eventually your thoughts will catch up with your actions. If you eat three meals and two snacks a day, that’s when you’ll think about food. That, along with shopping and preparation time. But the preoccupation with having something in your mouth all the time will be gone. Simple. Not easy, but simple.

So that’s five times a day you think about food. If you can get your snacks and meals sorted so you know what you’re having, or have a shortlist from which to choose (for which you have the ingredients, naturally), it’s even easier. If you choose to eat less often (for example if you don’t snack or you follow the intermittent fasting principle), even more thought power can be transferred to simply living your life instead of thinking about food. But for the moment, let’s say five times a day, to keep the blood sugar levels on an even keel and ease into this solution.

So food becomes a pleasant part of the day, but not your master. You think about it when it’s time to prepare and to eat, not every waking moment of every day. You consume it; it doesn’t consume you.

Every step we take is a step in a direction. Very few steps march in place, so it makes sense that the decisions we make on a daily, even moment-by-moment basis, are leading us somewhere.

It is said nowadays that failure happens on the way to success. But this is only true when we learn that our failures show us what not to do in the future. If we keep walking down the same road, how can we expect a different result?

Once you know that your steps are going the wrong way, you mightn’t know what to do—but you definitely know what not to do. You then choose to try something different, to go another way.

The fact that many of us seem to have a working failure model we never stray from has very little to do with our intelligence. We’re often not bringing our intelligence into play at all! Why do we keep compounding our less-than-successful actions with even more of the same ilk, choosing activities that are of no help to us or our dearest wishes? Because it’s easier. It’s part of our comfort zone. It’s mindlessly following a well trodden path. But it’s not the path that in our hearts we want to take. We all want to feel that we can be successful in some way.

I call it the failure model because to my mind that makes it sound more like something that can be trialled and changed. We do not need to see ourselves as slaves to our past habits and ways.

If the way we respond to our partner in difficult moments does not have the kind of resolution we would like, why do we keep reacting in the same way and saying the same things? If the food we eat makes us fat and unheallthy, why don’t we simply make a few changes and then never go back to the old way?

The way I try to see it these days is that what I am doing in this moment, of itself, will not make me fail or succeed. It is just one tiny action. But our whole lives are made up of moments, of tiny actions, and it is the decisions we make during those moments—this moment—that governs our eventual destination. So the perverse enjoyment we get from snapping back at our partner is shortlived and sends us down the wrong path. Maybe one icecream won’t hurt, but if it’s one icecream on the hour, every hour, it leads us down a very rocky road. Little actions, performed consistently over time, can have amazing results. And whether the result is good or bad depends on the quality of that one little action carried out over and over again.

Each step is leading somewhere. If we can remember that, and make a more considered choice in even the small actions that make up the minutiae of our day, we can indeed use the failure model as a stepping stone to success.

The problem many of us have is that we get stuck at the place which is really only the starting line. We go on a diet but slide back and have to start again. We clean up the house but let it descend into chaos and have to do it over. The main difficulty, in my opinion, is that these are the most difficult parts of the exercise. These are the hard yards. Do the hard yards, we are told. And we do. Over and over again.

We need to change. The hard yards should only need to be done once. Done once, and done well. Drinking too much? Give it up altogether. Yes, it might be hard. You might believe you can’t do it. Do it anyway. Then don’t go back to drinking and you won’t ever have to do those hard yards again. You will be over the hump. On the other side. Free of those particular hard yards forevermore.

Of course, it’s not that easy for most of us and we slip back to the starting line with a lot of our worst habits. When you stop smoking, the hardest time is the first week. Why go back to it and continually have to accomplish the first week all over again? Why not say, I’ve done those hard yards, then enjoy the easier ride of going onward and upward?

This works with so many things. Even sugar. Ubiquitous, addictive and legal. No wonder it has such strength over some of us. But once the chains are weakened, we are free to go. We get to choose. Leave now, even though it might be challenging to do so, or go back to do the hard yards all over again. The further away we get are from the starting line, the easier it is. It’s only when we go backwards that we falter.