Day 1: “Today is the day! I have decided to ___________. I have a solid plan, I feel great about this decision and I am so excited about accomplishing this!”
Day 7: “Wow, one week has passed. I am feeling so good – I can’t wait until I’m at the finish line on this. My life is going to be transformed”
Day 21: “We are in the groove. I’ve shown up for myself in spite of distractions. I CAN DO THIS!”
Day 45: Whew, I was not expecting that to happen. I don’t know if I can do this anymore. I’ve tried so many times before. Why did I think this time was going to be different? Maybe this isn’t what I was supposed to do. I made the wrong decision, again. Let me focus my attention on something else and I will revisit this later.
Does this scenario sound familiar? It absolutely does for me – especially as someone who has multiple passions that pull her in different directions often. Anytime we set a goal for ourselves especially a BIG goal we make the decision, we make some progress, we love it for ourselves then we hit a roadblock and most of the time we choose to give up. It just seems too big and there’s just no way we can get through it. We doubt that we are even deserving of achieving this goal.
During my weight loss journey, I have had MANY moments where I have failed myself. I’ve over eaten because it feels good or I have been on top of it for so long I tell myself I deserve a break or I have made excuses for why I can’t stick to my plan for the day. It is absolutely okay to give yourself some grace, but what happens most often is we take a break and we don’t recover from that break.
The idea that you don’t have to be perfect but you have to be consistent gives us just enough rope to hang ourselves. When the honeymoon phase has passed and real life kicks back in it can be difficult to sometimes remember that the journey you’re own still exists even when roadblocks stand in the way. True success comes when you meet adversity and you CHOOSE to carry on instead of allowing the blocker take you down for good.
In the last 10 months, more times that I can count I have had to tell to myself (sometimes out loud) that we are not quitting. Even if all we have is 10% today we are showing up for ourselves. We may not have the full hour to workout, but we have 30 minutes. What can we do in these 30 minutes to push us forward? When I am having a stressful day and my natural habit is to over-indulge on snacks I try to pause and ask myself if I am willing to sacrifice my progress for this temporary feeling or deal with the root of my stress and anxiety?
Now, let’s talk about motivation for a second. That sneaky, deceiving MF’er! Motivation is fleeting and it’s not something you should depend on to carry you through. Motivation is great to get you started, but consistency is what’s going to carry you to the finish line. I would recommend you ask yourself this question when you are faced with making a decision that is needed to you closer to your goal and you’re not motivated to move: “Are my current feelings more important that reaching my goal?” I guarantee that 99% of the time the answer to this question is a resounding no. (Disclaimer: I am not asking you to ignore things that are a matter of health and safety for yourself and your family) So often, we allow ourselves to be let off the hook and then complain because we aren’t where we wanted to be! How crazy is that? We have so much power over our reality that it’s sometimes scary. How often have you not wanted to go to work, but you go because the consequence is that your livelihood could be taken away. How tired are you of shuttling your kids to their activities but we do it because we want them to grow. Why do we not take that approach to the things that we desire but take time to achieve?
I’m not a big fan of affirmations, but the one that I find myself repeating over and over during this season is, “I will not break promises I’ve made to myself.” When you finally make the decision to chase a dream or set a goal – you have to be relentless in that pursuit and make it a priority. This sometimes means making people in your life upset because of your shift in priority. It also may force you to be the only person in your life that cares about what you’re trying to accomplish. You have to be comfortable knowing that you may have to walk alone through this time. But that’s okay because you are going to be so damn proud of yourself when you cross that finish line!
As I close out this week’s post, here are a few ‘affirmations’ you can takeaway:
- I won’t give up even when progress is slow and life is beating me down
- I will set realistic expectations that this may take longer that I thought it would
- I am prepared to walk alone because my goal is more important to me than anyone else
- I won’t feel guilt for making myself a priority
- I don’t break promises to myself
Until next time…you got this and I am rooting for you! Get after it!
xo, Siara
