How To Overcome The Curse Of Not Finishing
What could be wrong and what you can do
You want to lose weight. You started to list all the plans to reach your goal. You enrolled in a gym that says it’s open 24/7. Cut your diet. Prepare your low sodium chicken breast meal. Join 10k fun run even if you haven’t run a 3K. Even bet and compete in weight loss challenge.
You tell it to your family and they support you. Even your girlfriend or boyfriend joins (even he/she doesn’t need it) to support you and motivate you all the way.
All is set up. You badly need to lose extra pounds the soonest as possible. You need to reach your ideal BMI.
Two weeks have passed, you look at yourself in the mirror. Collar bone doesn’t show up. You weigh in. It seems the needle doesn’t move a little.
You begin to ask yourself, “What am I doing wrong?”. After all the hardships you persevere, you still hear insulting words, “You look bigger. You need to eat less.” Damn! I know they are concern with my health. (But if they only knew, how disheartening hearing those words ten times in a day!)
Then you lose your motivation to strive. You started to fall back. You pretend that nothing happened. You keep yourself busy to forget everything you planned. Every break time, you sneak for a sip of overpriced coffee. Or you drop by the drive-thru to buy yourself a piece of burger or two.
For a moment, you feel relieved. But the truth is, it’s your way of mental escape. You just want to feel good even just for a time.
Don’t blame yourself. Or worse, don’t fall into self-pity. Don’t feel guilty about not following your plans. There is nothing wrong with what you want.
It’s just, you set your goals or standards too high. Instead of it pushing you forward, it is pressing you down.
You want it so bad that you want it all at once. You want a turbocharger. The result — goals that are unfinished and plans are left unchecked.
We all fall on this trap.
So what do you need to do instead?
Forget about your goals
What I mean, stop focusing too much on your goals. Instead, focus on the process. The only way to get from point A to point B is to drive your car.
To do that, you have to start small. Yes, start small. If you are exercising 2 hours a day but can’t keep up the momentum, do it for 5 mins a day.
The problem for most of us, we want to start big, thinking that you gain fast results and will fast track your success.
The first goal is how to make your exercise a consistent activity, adding an extra 10 lbs weight is for another day.
Track your progress
Another factor that makes us lose track is that we don’t keep a success log.
Success log is a tracking system where you put your accomplishments each day. You read it right. Yes, each day! Go grab a pen and notebook and write it down.
You will feel down along the way. That’s a fact. Everyone does. Our energy ceases especially when we tend to look at how far we still need to go. But we forget how far we have been.
Learn to appreciate your success. That’s why logging our success is important in the long run. It will tell you that you are doing a great job.
Celebrate small wins
Don’t deprive yourself, dude!
This is most of us fail to do. We wait for the finish line before we celebrate. Reward yourself for every small goal you achieved. They call it confidence booster.
Go watch the movie you want or buy yourself a drink.
Your Takeaways
Starting small does not mean aiming less. You can still dream big. And you should. It is our motivator. We just have to remind yourself to take one, small step a time to reach your goals.
Remember, progress no matter how small is still progress.
At the end of the day, our goal is to be the best version of yourselves.
This does not only applies to our health but also business, work, relationship and life in general.
Aim to be to 1% better than you were yesterday. If you do that, you will be 38 times better in a year!
So take and wear that sweatshirt that you kept in your drawer for a long a time. Go out and start pounding!
Originally published at https://www.briandelacruz.net on May 12, 2019.
