We’ve all been there. You’ve committed to eating healthy, but for whatever reason, you slip and take a cookie from the jar. We then do a miraculous trick of mental gymnastics, we talk ourselves into believing, “I’m just the type of person who eats the cookies”, and we proceed to eat the whole jar.
This, of course, shows up in many other aspects of thought and behaviour. We start on a path of irrationality, we give ourselves permission, albeit subconsciously, to continue.
We momentarily forget that we have developed the capacity for reasoned thought, speech and action. We may have chosen to not use that for a second, but it’s still there.
Developing the capacity to recognise the first infraction for what it is, a slip in judgement, and then resuming the course is a powerful reframe, and one we’d all do well to keep close at hand.
Don’t succumb to the cookie jar fallacy.