Author: HairWeavings Editorial Team

I was already working on this article over the weekend, when yesterday, I stumbled on a piece of writing published in the Wall Street Journal, titled “October is the Time to Reset Goals” by Ann-Marie Alcantara.

I was amazed by the coincidence and thought, “OMG, I am on the right track!”

Don’t worry, I’m not going to bore you with the whole story, though I will share the direct link below, so stay tuned for that.

Instead, I will give you 10 reasons why I agree with the reasoning about resetting goals in October. After 30 years in the matchmaking business, I’ve seen this every October and apparently, so has Ann-Marie of the WSJ.

The Idea Behind October Theory

The idea here? It’s dubbed “October Theory,” and it revolves around people rethinking their approach to the last three months of the year. I find this to be true with my new clients too. They accept October as a time to set goals, pick up new habits (dating) and reflect – essentially taking on the role New Year’s plays.

Remember how we reset ourselves in the Fall – going back to college, high school, etc.? It gave us a feeling of newness; the desire to change some things. Yep, that feeling!

Ready for a Pre-Holiday Reset?

Here we go with my 10 dating tips:

#1: Think Outside Your “Type”

You may always go for the 6’2″ athlete, but love can surprise you. I’ve seen many people fall for someone they swore wasn’t their type.

#2: Don’t Expect Perfection

No one is perfect, or even remotely close, so don’t expect it from yourself either! Embrace imperfections.

#3: Your Date Is Not a Mind Reader

A healthy relationship needs communication, chemistry, and shared values. Did I mention communication?

#4: Trust Your Gut

If something feels off – like a sketchy profile or one suspicious photo – listen to your instincts.

#5: Don’t Get Attached Too Quickly

One date doesn’t mean you’ve met “the one.” Rushing to quit dating others after one great date is a bad idea. I had this happen yesterday with a client – she wants to stop meeting other men even though she’s only had one super date. Nope. I’d give it 4-5 dates before you ditch others.

#6: Dive into Online Dating

Set a goal for four first dates in the first two weeks. It’ll build your confidence, especially if you’ve been out of the dating scene for a while.

#7: Say Yes

Whether it’s a party, a hike with new people, or a date with someone you’re unsure about, take the chance. You never know where it might lead.

#8: Live in the Moment

Stop worrying about date #3 or how it will work with your kids. Focus on enjoying the present moment.

#9: Don’t Overthink If They Stop Texting

If they ghost you, don’t dwell on it. There’s a huge dating pool out there – move on!

#10: Know What You Deserve

Never settle. In my 30 years as a dating coach, I’ve learned one thing: there’s a lid for every pot.

Read the Wall Street Journal article here: “October is the Time to Reset Goals”.

If you’re ready to start dating, but are unsure how to go about it, let me help you. Click here to set up a free 15-minute call with me to see if I can help change your life.  It’s what I love to do.

Let’s Have a Conversation:

Have you heard of October Theory? What goals have you decided to reset this October? How well are you navigating this decision?

As odd as it might sound, for most people losing weight is not really about the food, and it’s definitely not about going on a diet. Coming from a registered dietitian, this might sound surprising, but my decades of experience in helping people lose weight and keep it off have proven it true time and time again.

Most people know what they should be eating but they’re just not able to do it. I can’t even begin to tell you how many patients and clients I’ve counseled over the years, giving the best nutrition advice possible, and they weren’t able to follow “the plan.”

And my clients are smart people! They know that refined carbs and processed junk foods aren’t good for their bodies and that eating these foods won’t help them reach their weight loss goals.

And I knew this too. But it didn’t help.

My Own Experience with Food

When I was feeling neglected, I ate boxes of cookies and frozen waffles with butter and powdered sugar. When I was anxious or overwhelmed, I ate huge bowls of popcorn and bags of corn chips. When I was sad or lonely, I secretly ate ice cream and chocolate after everyone went to bed.

Of course, I knew better, but that didn’t matter. I couldn’t help myself. I felt powerless over food.

And to make things worse, I’m a dietitian, specializing in helping people lose weight. I felt like a fraud.

It wasn’t until I started looking at WHY I was eating – and overeating – that I discovered what was going on.

My emotions were triggering my cravings and emotional eating!

What Happens When We Experience Emotions?

Our emotions don’t come out of nowhere. They are generated by our bodies based on what we are experiencing in any particular moment. For example, you may experience happiness when something good happens in your life and fear when you are feeling threatened or in danger.

The information stored in our bodies and minds from past experiences also influences what emotions we create and make us more reactive to that emotion in the future.

Ideally, three things happen when we experience an emotion:

1) Our body generates the emotional vibration;

2) We feel the emotion and any thoughts or physical sensations that come with it; and

3) We process the emotion and let it go.

But if we don’t allow ourselves to feel the emotion or if we don’t process it and let it go, the energy of that emotion becomes stuck, or trapped, in our bodies. This is often described as our emotional baggage. Instead of moving beyond your feelings of anger or grief (or whatever emotion you’re feeling), you hold this negative emotional energy in your body.

How Do Emotions Trigger Cravings and Emotional Eating?

It’s this negative, emotional energy that can trigger cravings and emotional eating along with other physical, mental, or emotional issues.

For example, let’s say you came home to an empty house each day after school, and you were lonely and sad. It’s unlikely that you knew how to process these emotions and let them go, so they got stored in your body and made you feel not so great.

The next thing you know, you’re raiding the cookie jar, and you start to feel better. Now your body is generating emotions like happiness and joy, and of course this feels much better than loneliness and sadness. In addition, the sugar from the cookies is spiking your serotonin and dopamine, which causes you to feel even better!

And thus, the cycle begins. Your body has learned that food soothes those negative emotions and makes you feel better.

And because those negative emotions of loneliness and sadness are still trapped in your body, when you feel those emotions in the future (as an adult), you’re triggered to soothe yourself with food, again and again. What makes this cycle even harder to break is that each time you use food to soothe your emotions, you’re reinforcing that pathway in your brain, making it stronger and stronger.

The solution is to deal with the underlying cause of the problem (the trapped emotions) instead of self-medicating with food.

Here Are 4 Steps You Can Take to Get Started

Step 1: Journal About Your Emotions

Identify the emotions that are triggering your cravings and emotions by journaling. Set aside some quiet time to reflect on what emotional states trigger your eating habits. Some common ones are lonely, sad, anxious, unworthy, and frustrated.

Step 2: Go Deep and Trust Your Intuition

Maybe you find yourself binge eating when a friend cancels your plans at the last minute. Notice how this feels in your body. Perhaps you feel a nauseous feeling in your gut, and this reminds you of the time when you were a teenager and your best friend ditched you and you felt abandoned. In this case, the trapped emotion is abandonment.

Step 3: Release the Trapped Emotion from Your Body

Take a deep breath in, and on the exhale say, “I’m releasing this trapped emotion of ____________.” You can also try visualizing releasing this energy from your body.

Step 4: Try Emotional Freedom Techniques

Consider energy healing techniques like EFT (Emotional Freedom Techniques). This is one of the techniques I teach my clients to use because it’s so fast and effective for releasing the emotional baggage we’ve accumulated over the years. We also use other energy healing techniques as well like The Emotion Code and Psych-K.

Conquering Your Emotional Eating Is Possible

Identifying and releasing the trapped emotions in your body can play a big role in reducing or eliminating your cravings and emotional eating.

If you’d like to learn more, I warmly invite you to watch my free training: How to Stop Cravings and Emotional Eating So You Can Lose the Weight and Keep It Off. At the end of the training, I offer a free consultation to talk about your situation and explore how I might help.

Let’s Have a Conversation:

Have you tried to identify the emotions that trigger your eating habits? What are they and what do you do to battle them?

Chavez and his girlfriend are definitely in the honeymoon period.

Do you feel overwhelmed by the countless decisions you face every day? From the moment you crawl out of bed to the moment you put your head on the pillow at night, Psychology Today estimates that you make more than 2,000 decisions each working hour – one every two seconds! And that’s just an average day.

Now, imagine if you’re trying to downsize, declutter, or design your kitchen. No wonder you’re experiencing decision fatigue! In this fast-paced world, where we’re bombarded with endless information and way too many choices, decision fatigue is a real phenomenon that affects all of us. It can take a toll, impacting our emotional and mental well-being.

When faced with too many choices, decision fatigue sets in, manifesting with some common signs:

• Feeling overwhelmed, anxious, or hopeless
• Difficulty focusing
• Mentally and physically drained
• Brain fog
• Avoidance and procrastination
• Impulsive or rash decisions
• Irritability, especially with your own indecisiveness

What Triggers Decision Fatigue?

Information Overload

Having access to endless streams of information on the internet, TV, social media, and advertisements can easily lead to decision fatigue.

Too Many Choices

While we all like having options, too many choices can lead to confusion, indecision, and poor decision-making.

Perfectionism

Expecting perfection can lead to overthinking, overanalyzing, and overcomplicating decisions. It slows down the process and adds to anxiety, frustration, and the fear of making the wrong choice.

Top 5 Secrets to Beat Decision Fatigue

Secret #1: Set Clear Goals

Clear goals help you prioritize decisions. Know what you want to accomplish – this will help narrow down your options, allowing you to focus on what matters most.

Example: ABC’s of Downsizing

A simple tool I use to help my design clients make important choices when downsizing their homes involves labeling large items as follows:

• A items: Items you definitely want to keep and bring to your new, smaller home.
• B items: Items you’d like to take if they fit and look good in your new space.
• C items: Items you don’t want, don’t need, or won’t use – these are okay to donate, dispose of, or recycle.

Secret #2: Create Daily Routines and Habits

Creating daily routines and habits for routine decisions helps automate your choices, saving time, conserving mental energy, and limiting the number of decisions you need to make each day.

Example: Capsule Wardrobe

Having a small, versatile wardrobe that can be mixed and matched to create a variety of outfits reduces decision fatigue because you have fewer clothing choices to make daily.

Secret #3: Filter Your Options

Eliminate options that aren’t viable or realistic.

Example: Budget Filter

How much money are you willing or able to spend on something – a vacation, a house, a computer, or a home renovation? A budget filter helps you quickly screen out unrealistic options – things you can’t afford or don’t want to spend too much money on.

Secret #4: Streamline Choices/The Magic of 3

Narrowing down your decisions to several viable options simplifies the process and helps you make the best choice by weighing the pros and cons of each.

Example: The Magic of 3

When presenting to my design clients, I always offer three solid design options. Each is uniquely different but satisfies my clients’ needs and “wish list.” For example, in a kitchen renovation, we might have three different designs:

1. One that keeps the existing wall structure.
2. One that removes an adjoining dining room wall.
3. One that removes both the dining room wall and the family room wall to open up the entire area.

Three different designs, three different budgets, and three different results. The client gets to choose what matters most to them and what works best for their lifestyle. By narrowing it down to three designs, it becomes easier to decide, and it helps move the project forward.

Secret #5: Timing Is Everything

Save important decisions for when you feel most alert – research shows this is usually within 1 to 3 hours after waking up. This also helps reduce the likelihood of procrastination.

If you suffer from decision fatigue, either regularly or just occasionally, applying these 5 simple strategies can help you regain control, reduce or eliminate decision fatigue, and make better choices for a happier, more fulfilling life.

Let’s Have a Conversation:

How often do you feel overwhelmed by the decisions you have to make on a daily basis? Which decisions are the most difficult for you to make? Is the difficulty due to the number of choices or something else? What strategies help you make the best decision in each situation?

Kock is rumored to be in a steady relationship.