LEARNING NOT TO QUIT – Part I

We want to provide you with some strategies to help get you past some weight loss hurdles. They are strategies that can be used in many areas when someone is trying to reach a goal.

Our first strategy involves understanding the reality that people get discouraged and struggle to keep going forward in hard times. Part of that reason is because they often never expect their motivation to decline.

Even when we set out with a positive or realistic outlook on things, motivation levels can drop. Perhaps you start to focus more on the added responsibility that your decision required, which you may not have considered initially.

When this happens, you have two choices. You can put on your rose-colored glasses of the past and falsely remember how perfect things were before you started your journey – how happy you were with your extra weight, medications, fatigue, inability to do things with family and friends, excluding yourself from others… and the list goes on.

Or, you can put on your realistic glasses, realizing that nothing in life is easy or stable all the time, and that you need to face your difficulties and keep moving forward into something better. It doesn’t have to be all-or-nothing – just move forward. The true test of our character comes when we hit a slump or crash into a pothole in the road.

This is true when you just don’t “feel” like doing things anymore, and you are tempted to give in and give up. If you realize that these feelings are temporary and that everyone has them from time-to-time, you will understand that you don’t always need motivation in order to act.

Sure, it’s nice to have the motivation and to feel “up” all the time, but that’s not realistic. These are times when character is being developed – character to complete your current goal and a perseverance that will serve you well in all your other goals. If we only do things when we feel like doing them, we will begin to slide backwards in many areas of life. Think of all the things you do daily or weekly that you don’t feel like doing.

Another thing anyone can do when they are having a tough time is to go back to our “Why” - go back to the very reason you wanted to lose weight in the first place. Something motivated you to make a change. That is why it is always important when goal setting to make a list of all the reasons you want to achieve that goal – and you really need to have a strong enough “why” to motivate you to continue striving to meet your goal.

Goals that aren’t specific enough, and that don’t deliver enough impact, will not carry you through when things are tough. You need to be able to go back to your list often so that you remember every day why you are doing what you are doing. Because if you don’t, you start to slip. You stop being intentional and focused. Then a little slip leads to several slips; and one day leads to a week; a week leads to a month; and before you know it, you’ve lost all your motivation to move forward – because you weren’t focused.

And you can’t focus on something when you aren’t clear about what and why you are doing it in the first place. If you have an initial list, revise it if you need to. Things change. Add more reasons to it now that you have learned some things on your journey. Keep your list handy and within reach so that you will see it every day – especially first thing in the morning to start your day.

We have more helpful solutions that we will cover next week.