If you’re like me, you may have recently watched the Netflix show, Cheer, and thought, “I’ve got to start working out more…” But surely that isn’t the first time you’ve told yourself that. From New Year’s resolutions to the start of a new school year in September, we seem to be obsessed with clean, fresh starts where we can completely transform ourselves and our habits. However, this mentality may be just the thing that keeps us from achieving our goals.
The abstinence violation effect is defined as when an “individual, having made a personal commitment to abstain from using a substance or to cease engaging in some other unwanted behavior, has an initial lapse whereby the substance or behavior is engaged in at least once” and then “attributes the cause of the initial lapse…to internal, stable, and global factors within.” This can then lead to what’s colloquially known as the “eff-it” phenomenon—completely giving up because “eff it, it’s all the same anyway.”
In other words, when you tell yourself out of the blue that you are going to completely stop eating processed foods, and a day later you have a slice of birthday cake, you’re likely to attribute this shortcoming to a flaw in your character rather than a one-time mistake. Instead of thinking, “I made a mistake, and I can come back from this,” you tend to think, “Clearly, I don’t have the willpower to do something like this.” Then you may go and eat two more slices of cake, chips, cookies, pizza and then later find yourself thinking, “Why didn’t I just stop after one slice? That, I could have come back from.”
These patterns of thinking are extremely common, and they keep us working against ourselves. The need to be a perfect version of ourselves once we hit the “reset” button is a toxic and falsely hopeful outlook on life. We celebrate each other going on ridiculous and unsustainable diets at the beginning of the year, yet think nothing of it in February when any and all signs of healthy eating are gone. Instead of seeking the glamor that comes with full, abrupt transformations of ourselves, we should champion the achievement of smaller goals that it takes to actually sustain a healthy lifestyle.
Overcoming the abstinence violation effect starts with being mindful of it and follows with being kinder to ourselves. If we accept the obvious fact that we are human beings and sometimes make mistakes, it is much easier to recover from setbacks. Rather than questioning our self-worth after a mistake is made, we will be able to simply acknowledge it and move on from there. The myth that we need to erase all past mistakes and start with a “blank slate” if we want to live a healthful life is dangerous because it keeps us striving for fad fitness trends rather than consistency.
The first action step is to think about both short and long-term goals. For example, maybe your short-term goal is to eat healthy and build muscle so that you can perform better in your sport, and your long-term goal is to care for your body in order to avoid preventable diseases later in life. No matter what it is, you need to find a reason that you legitimately care about to keep you on track. Usually, these should be more long term goals because it will be easier to think about your development in the grand scheme of things and not fixate on minor setbacks.
All in all, understanding the abstinence violation effect is extremely important in crafting achievable goals for ourselves. This doesn’t mean we can’t be ambitious; it simply means we can learn to adapt when things don’t go to plan and truly build ourselves up over time.
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