The Big Idea
We have talked a lot on The52Project so far about how introducing small new habits can make a positive difference to both your mood and performance. This week we are talking about how removing some small things can make a positive difference too.
You know that sinking feeling that you get when you get on the weighing scales and they give you a bigger number than you were hoping for? Or that mirror in the hallway that is really unflattering and you avoid looking at in the morning? Or when you look on Facebook and actually the fact that everyone seems to be out and about and having more fun than you, makes you feel a bit lonely? We are calling those Mood Hoovers! Small things that give you a little dose of sadness, regret or guilt.
When we wanted to talk about this, we were lucky that we knew a man so we had a plan! To help us with this weeks tip, we asked David Rogers to join us. David has recently published his first book Fuelled, Fit and Fired Up which is literally jam packed with down to earth tips for both physical and mental health and wellbeing. We have put a link to the book on the links below.
Dave is more than a little bit of an inspiration to lots of people – as well as holding down a proper grown up job as a senior accountant, he does lots of voluntary work to support his community – and found time not just to write his book in lockdown, but also to design, typeset and print it himself! He is also one of those people who when you know him, you don’t want to let go of! In the foreword to Dave’s book, Sunday Times best seller Michael Heppell says “David Rogers is one of the kindest people I know”, Dulcie met him when they were both developing their careers at Mitchells and Butlers and they have shared many a pint together!
The irony was not lost on us, that Dave – as an accountant – was telling us that when it comes to getting fitter and feeling better, numbers really don’t matter – and can do more harm than good! Take weighing yourself daily if you are trying to look and feel better by thinking carefully about what you eat. Dave recommends that you actually rely on what you look and feel like. He found that when he was trying to lose weight that the NUMBER became more important than how he felt he was doing. Dave described how actually the number would act as a de-motivator (or mood hoover). If he felt he had done lots of exercise and eaten well but the number didn’t correlate to the effort he had put in, it made him feel that he wanted to give up! This was despite the evidence he had in front of him that he had actually made healthy choices that would absolutely have been good for him!
The same goes for your phone and social media – both can be all too frequent mood hoovers. If looking through the messages makes you feel good, then great! But if you find yourself feeling guilty about the hours you have spent and you feel tired and a bit low afterwards, then it is worth perhaps setting a timer to keep it a positive experience – or to have a certain time of day where your phone goes away for an hour to give yourself a break.
The trick here is to start to be mindful – to notice some of the things that you are doing on autopilot, that are simply not making you feel good. When we notice, we can start to do things differently.
There are plenty of habits you can stack in here – things that we know do you good. So perhaps if it is your habit to get on the scales as your morning shower warms up, do a #Tip5 And Breathe – taking a moment to do a breathing exercise or a #Tip 6 and Do the Plank instead.
If you reach for your phone to look through social media when you take a break from work and make a cup of tea, why not try a #Tip 16 Dance and Brew instead and see if that gives you a little boost of energy that you don’t get with the phone browse?
And if you really can’t bear to move that mirror in the hallway, why not try what Dulcie is going to test this week and remind yourself give it a really big smile as you look into it and channel #Tip10 Keep Smiling! We are going to cover positive affirmations in a future blog that would stack beautifully here so watch this space…

So our challenge to you is what small thing could you give yourself permission to do less of in your life that would make you feel better?

Got it…What’s the Science
One of the curious things about the brain is that we are wired to pay more attention and give more credibility to negative things than we are positive ones. It is often called Negativity Bias. Interestingly, this bias is so strong that when comparing two people where one is highly critical and the other is hugely positive, our brains will make an assumption that the more negative person is smarter than the positive one! This is of course, not true. But it’s another of those amazing facts that help us to realise that the habits we have and the assumptions that we make, may not be accurate and may instead be our brains playing a trick on us!
So when we are trying to lose weight or feel good about ourselves, we need to bear in mind that when we do well, or have a good day, our brains might neatly gloss over that. However, if you have a bad day, perhaps you gain a little weigh or #Tip13 TreatYourself don’t be surprised if you give yourself a hard time about it – your brain is wired to notice when you fail!
Back to Dave’s observation that he makes his weighing scales hard to get to, so that he judges his healthy life-style choices less on whether the scales give him a particular number but more on how he looks and feels. Because our brains are wired to notice the bad, if we do get “evidence” via a number on the scales that our good habits aren’t translating into weight loss, it is going to be very hard to tell yourself that you are still doing a great job. You simply aren’t wired to be that kind to yourself!
Knowing this gives us a fabulous opportunity to #Tip23 Time to Reframe If we can spot ourselves just at the moment where the negative self talk is about to kick in, to turn the number on the scales into an opportunity to berate ourselves and tell ourselves there is no point in continuing with our healthy choices…we can do something about it!
All of those emotions and the negative self-talk that goes along with them is an activity that your pre-frontal cortex (PFC) has to attend to – and we know that that part of the brain is really not very old at doing two things at once – and switching between one thinking task and another takes brain energy. So even if it is just a momentary “Oh god, I look awful in that mirror…” or a “I can’t believe, it I shouldn’t be half a kilo heavier today…” that negative self-talk is something we could do without – both for the chemicals it releases and the brain fuel it wastes!
We know that having too many things on the mind at once is going to limit the capacity to really achieve success at a task, or tasks – at least until they can become more instinctual / automatic – like riding a bike or driving a car. Unfortunately, and activity like weighing yourself or glancing in the mirror as you leave the house is likely to be automatic. That’s why it is really helpful to either put the scales away or to make the mirror something you can’t help but smile into! We are replacing a potentially unhelpful habit that we did on autopilot, with a more helpful one – that we also use our auto piloting tendencies to help us stick with!
Watch our #Tip28 on the Instagram Live Recording….
With special guest and expert from Fuelled, Fit and Fired Up author – David Rogers:
Links
Are You A Mood Hoover Or Mood Radiator?
Wellbeing Wheel Tool – NHS England
Parting Shots
We would love to think that anyone watching live, watching back or reading this could look at their overwhelming list of things to do and as themselves this powerful question:
So our challenge to you is what small thing could you give yourself permission to do less of in your life that would make you feel better?
As ever, we’d love to hear what you choose (and give permission to yourself) to do less of – you can fill in our feedback form here on the website if you don’t want to share it publically.
Tales from our Test Partners
We’ll add these soon
Related Top Tips
Leave a Reply