Weighing In - Getting Started on Your Healthy Lifestyle
Posted by Alicia Leeds on Tue, Jul 06, 2010 @ 06:25 PM
Today is the day (you've said it before but you really mean it this time) the first day of the rest of your life. Today you will eat healthy, exercise, lose weight, work hard, be patient with your kids, give more money to charity, volunteer at the local food bank, and take old Mrs Green out for a nice shopping trip.
Whew. Time to get up!
Unfortunately, on your way out the door, you've forgotten to have breakfast and hadn't even thought about packing a lunch, so by the time you remember that today is the day you are changing your life forever, you are sitting in a conference room trying to pay attention to the presentation on marketing goals while engaged in a battle between your willpower and the lone Sesame Seed Bagel left on the console next to the coffee pot.
You lose.
A bagel is healthy, right? Well, whatever, it will be your breakfast and lunch and you will just not eat another thing until you get home tonight at which time you will have plain iceburg lettuce. (So you will be virtuous while punishing yourself for your earlier transgressions, and tomorrow morning the scale will register your success.)
Turns out the girls are going out for Chinese to celebrate Mary's birthday - how could you have forgotten? And what do you mean you are on a diet - you can start tomorrow - get your coat on, silly.
There it is. Your first day ruined. If only you didn't have a pesky job you could focus all your energy on losing weight. Ok, just start tomorrow... but tomorrow is Tuesday and who starts a new life on Tuesday?
Really want to change? Change the way you think about changing. Monday, Tuesday, whenever... doesn't matter...you are taking yourself and all your old thoughts, habits and excuses along for the ride. Stop.
Get out a pen. Write down your goals for today, for the week, for the month. Make a plan for tomorrow, and think it all the way through. Set up your environment to support your success. Get help from people who know how to do what you want to be doing. Commit to the process.
Your NEW Life (whatever that means to you) starts with you changing your mind, changing your approach, and changing how you do things. Start writing. Now.