The Fifth Installment of Five: Time-honored Tips to Boost Your Goal Chasing Success.
How many times has this happened to you?
You start out on a weightloss journey. Family, a major holiday, hormones, your best gal pals from college, any excuse shows up at your doorstep and you break your diet. You beat yourself up over the next couple of weeks, “Oh, I’ll *never* be able to stick to this; I’ll always be fat!!! Well, since I’m always going to be fat, what’s the point,” and you grab another handful of cheat-o’s [sic].
What will happen if you let yourself wallow in self-castigation? Your prophecy will be fulfilled. You’ll always be fat. Until you are dead. What would happen if you, instead of wearing self-doubt as a defense against commitment, you got up, brushed off the crumbs, and said, “Oh well, that was yesterday. Guess I just needed a little break, but now it’s time to get back to eating the way I should. And you pack your gym bag and head off to the gym.
Which strategy is more likely to lead to success? If you kick your setbacks in the teeth by putting your rear in gear, and getting back up on the horse, you will succeed.
And forgive yourself.
Was your goal to be perfect, or was your goal to lose Xlbs of weight before XX/XX/XXXX ? If it was to be perfect, good luck, because I’m guessing there is paralysis down that path… you’ll keep editing that article until it’s stale news, you’ll never try anything you’re not good at, because you won’t be perfect…
You know what, I’m a lousy, lousy tennis player. I suck cookies. My friends still like to play tennis with me because I don’t get down about it… I laugh my butt off because me on a tennis court is friggin’ hilarious. I give my tennis partners the best game I can. They enjoy playing with me because they don’t know what to expect, and because we always leave the courts with a grin.
You know what else? Because I didn’t throw my tennis rackets into the trash bin when it became abundantly clear that I’d never be “perfect”, I’m a much better player today than I was ten years ago in spite of knees that are 10 years old and wiser.
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March 28th, 2009 at 2:51 pm
[...] Goal Girls Blog Very interesting site about goals, get your rear in gear. [...]
August 6th, 2009 at 4:51 am
[...] fallen down on the job as far as maintaining this blog and a couple of other goals, but I’ll forgive myself and move on [...]
August 6th, 2009 at 5:40 am
[...] Forgiven myself… again. Sometimes forgiveness is not an act, but a process. [...]