Recently (on the treadmill actually) I was thinking about goals and working toward them and what a convoluted process it is and that led me to this post. I think we are always in 3 stages of something that we are experiencing (4 if you count retreating-but we are going to focus on the first 3)
- Survive and Advance
- Tiny steps forward
- Bursts forward
- Retreating-but we are trying to stay away from that for now.
So let’s take the goal of weight loss. We see a magazine article or diet book that promises “Lose 30 pounds in 30 days” and we get excited. We want to lose 30 pounds! And we can do it in 30 days-YES! So we start the diet, start working out and may even lose a couple pounds that first week. Then, we don’t lose weight in week 2 and we get frustrated. We keep trying the program and maybe lose 1-2 pounds in week 3 but then week 4 creeps up and we have lost nothing. We feel like a failure. We only lost a total of 4 pounds-we were supposed to lose THIRTY! So we give up, go to the grocery store, buy an entire bag of cookies and eat them all before we even get out of the parking lot. Thats just me? Oh ok (its ok-I know you have done it too and just don’t want to admit it) Then we retreat back into our old habits and ways until we try again to lose the weight.
We were in burst mode for 3o days and when our results were not as promised, we think we have failed.
In my opinion, every goal should be attacked in 3 ways and we should avoid #4 at all costs. But that is not how we currently do things. We “go burst or go home.”
So lets take the weight loss goal to start with. First, I survived the holidays/funerals/job change/house move/ etc…for last 10 months and only gained about 5ish pounds. Success! Next, I started taking a few tiny steps in the last couple of weeks like drinking more water, wearing my Fitbit to see how many steps I am averaging, and working on my sleep (supposed to help with weight loss). JUST this week (actually yesterday) I decided to cut out sugar for 30 days. It is a burst for sure but I am not doing ANYTHING ELSE differently with my diet, so it is also a bit of a tiny step to lead me back to the low carb lifestyle that I had been enjoying before my world exploded. The other tiny step I am working on is advancing my average steps for the week from 8100 to 8500.
I am not doing this for weight loss (although that would be an added bonus). Instead I want to feel better and stronger. I know that by cutting out sugar and increasing steps, those things will start to happen.
I will update you Sunday on how Week 1 went! To my 74 followers-what tiny step could you take this week toward a goal?
tallgirltinysteps 