I always had this desire to be a good cook. I started practicing cooking when I was a teenager, but I wasn't all that great at it.
I remember I made cookies one time. They were the ones that were frozen and you just had to defrost them. I put them in the oven and I burned them and it was a whole mess.
Ever since then my siblings would make fun of me about my lack of baking and cooking skills and whenever I would make something, nobody would want to try it and this was just years of me being the butt of the joke when it came to not knowing how to cook.
Over the years I was just trying but I wasn’t so successful, mainly because I just wasn’t consistent. I would tell myself that I would start cooking and baking and I only ended up cooking or baking about once a month, if even.
Fast forward to a couple of years later when I started living at home again. I also had food sensitivities so I couldn't eat a lot of the foods that I was eating before.
So I started having to cook for myself because I just wanted to eat something that tasted good and that wouldn’t hurt me.
I started cooking more consistently and I remember thinking to myself that one day I’m going to make something so good and everyone is going to want to eat it or I’m just going to end up being a really good cook and cooking is going to work out for me and I’m no longer going to be making jokes about myself about how I can't cook.
That time has finally come. Thank G-d, LOL.
It has been already several dishes that I’ve made and crafted on my own I thought of the ingredients and everything surrounding the dish which to me is a pretty big deal. I remember always looking at my sisters who are really good at cooking and they would always just put stuff together and it would come out really good and then I would follow a recipe that was supposed to be so good but it would turn out awful
I’ve actually come to a point in my life where I am somewhat considered to be a good cook. I guess according to my standards LOL. From the feedback that I received from my family and they are very particular.
I want to talk about how I was able to stay consistent to become a (relatively) good cook and baker.
The first thing that I want to recommend that you guys do if you’re trying to stay consistent is to have a goal plan.
I like to make plans for everything. I find planning goals to be extremely helpful. For everything that I’ve done in my life, I’ve always had a plan.
How am I going to reach my goals?
What am I specifically going to do?
When am I going to do those things? How am I going to do those things?
There was a time when I didn’t have as much access to a kitchen. So I didn’t actually have a way to improve on my cooking.
Side tip: be specific with your goals and how you will achieve them.
Making sure that I have access to the kitchen and to the ingredients that I need. I know it sounds so simple and obvious, but it’s such a major point. Because there are so many times that I didn’t even have the things that I needed and so I ended up just not cooking. So now I make sure that I have everything that I need to cook.
The second thing that I’ve always made sure to do is to journal. I’ve been journaling all my life but I started taking it very seriously at the start of this new year 2020.
I told myself that I will journal every single day about what I was proud of, what I was disappointed about, how I was thinking, what I was feeling. What I ate and how I felt after I ate.
Now that January is coming to an end, I am looking through my month. I write things that I wanted to do and successfully did, and then also things that I wanted to do but didn’t do.
Then you look back and you realize that this is why you have or haven’t been improving. You are eating a ton of sugar, for example, and that is why you haven’t been feeling better or haven’t been reaching your fitness goals. When you look back you realize that you have been eating too much sugar to reach your goals. You realize more than you would’ve realized had you not taking notes of it.
The next tip is to do at least one thing every single day that brings you closer to your goal. Or this can be every two days or several times a week or even once a week. It depends on you. Be proud of your goals and don’t compare them to someone else’s. This is your journey and something that has to work for you not for your best friends or for your parents.
There is a thin technique that I learned from one of the books that I’m reading. It’s super simple.
Instead of just thinking that you’re going to do something or not do something, you’re going to say it out loud that you are going to do it or you’re not going to do it.
So for example, if I know that I need to consistently cook to improve on my skills and to perfect the skills that I already have and to find the best way to make the recipes... I will tell myself in the morning, "today I’m going to make myself lunch instead of just thinking it. I’m going to make myself this dish that I want to perfect and try it out maybe even in a different way and have one of my sisters try it out."
Make it a consistent benchmark that you’re going to use to get consistently better at your goals.
Keep yourself accountable. If I didn’t cook for myself then I just wouldn’t be able to eat anything that I liked. I don’t wanna just be sitting there and eating cucumbers, tomatoes, and mushrooms because that’s so boring. That’s the repercussion of not cooking for myself.
For when I try not to reach for a sugary snack... I will say out loud I am choosing not to eat this because if I do eat this bar then I won’t feel good. I will probably feel a bit sick and especially if I’m going to work out today I will feel sluggish and I will also feel disappointed in myself for not keeping to my goals.
I just look at all of the different issues and negative things about eating that sugary snack. Or if I do eat that snack and I end up not feeling all that great afterward then I sit down and have a conversation with myself to go over the reasons why I’m not feeling well and what those reasons may have to do with the snack.
I ask myself if I do X, Y or Z am I going to be able to write that I am proud of that or that I’m disappointed about that when I go to my journaling at night.
I always ask myself the questions:
Will this hurt you or will it hinder you?
Will this make you feel good or make you feel bad in the long run?
Is it helping me achieve my goals or is it moving me further away from achieving my goals?
Making your goals a necessity. For me, cooking for myself and not eating a lot of sugary things is a necessity because those are ways that I can make sure that I feel good throughout the day. It for you it’s trying to get yourself to work out regularly, then that is a necessity because by not working out and sticking to that goal you don’t feel as confident, you feel sluggish, you feel like you’re putting on weight which doesn’t feel all that great.
When you start to think of your goals from a different perspective it starts to play out a greater role in value in your life.
And remember that this is all about having it be long-term. It’s not just about feeling good for five minutes or a day or a week. It’s about feeling good for life. It's about your lifestyle. Create a lifestyle that works for you in order to have a life you enjoy.
Think of all of the amazing changes that are going to occur if you start being consistent about reaching your goals. Within just a couple of weeks, you could feel so much better. Even in just one day or a week.
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