Recently I got on the scales and realized that I have gained almost 10 pounds this year. The ten this year plus the 15 last year means that I am now at my highest weight ever. There is no real surprise as to why I have gained so much weight. I ran into serious burnout at the end of 2020 and have struggled to remain engaged at work which means that often I go to lunch in a poor frame of mind and consequently make poor choices. Then I come home disappointed that I gave in to the numbing effects of fast food but now feel too exhausted to make better choices for dinner. This cy
cle repeating with only short-lived periodic breaks means that I am setting myself up for serious consequences in the perhaps not so far future. This lack of accountability for myself, ends now.
I did not arrive at this current milestone overnight—the me that I see in the mirror today was years in the making. And the me that I want to be will take months of steadily chipping away at the bad habits that I sought solace in for far too long. It will take time craft and hone good habits that will lead to better decisions. I need to learn to celebrate the gains and forgive myself for the setbacks.
Henry David Thoreau told us to “Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you imagined.” I know what living the life you have imagined feels like, and that isn't my life right now. I have lost my imagination and feel adrift and rudderless. Reclaiming my imagination by focusing intently on the path head so that I craft a new dream requires an investment and a steady stream of effort. I am looking for a dream that will carry me through this next phase of my life.
Recently, I read Atomic Habits: tiny changes, remarkable results: an easy & proven way to build good habits and break bad ones by James Clear. Much of the information in Atomic Habits was not new to me. I have read Charles Duhigg’s The Power of Habit: why we do what we do in life and business and Martha Becks’ The Four Day Win: end your diet war and achieve thinner peace. In many ways Atomic Habits is repackaging the information in these two books with some new concepts all tied together in an easily consumable book.
One of Clear’s concepts is something that I hadn't considered before is that for change to happen we need to move from the intention of doing into actively doing it. Let me use grocery shopping to illustrate the point. I go grocery shopping and as I am putting things in my cart, I imagine all the things I am going to make, how healthy the recipes are, etc. If I choose a comfortable food--say ice cream--I imagine that I will parcel it out a recommended serving at a time--maybe even half a serving. I get home and put the groceries away. The first day, everything is going according to plan. Then something happens the next day--I grab fast food for lunch and then I come home and remember that there is ice cream in the freezer. Thirty minutes later the ice cream carton sits in the trash can and 8 days later all the healthy produce joins it. Which brings us to another of Clear's recommendation--fail one day but not two days in a row. Stack your successes build on creating streaks. Remember when Wordle came out? We all were excited about creating a winning streak--inevitably we broke that streak but we didn't stop playing the game. We started working on a new streak.
These are the Streaks that I am currently working on maintaining:
Writing a short daily journal entry in my planner--June 27
Posting daily photos on my Sapphire Lucy Designs Facebook Page--August 1
Daily walk--August 14
Creating a blog post--August 14
I'm starting with easy streaks and will work on building up into more substantial ones as I move through the dream, plan, do, achieve process.
I'm going to sign off with two photos--the first was taken when I was at my physical fitness and many things were going well in my life. The other was taken last month. I have a long way to go but I won't get there unless I start the journey and stay the course.
Next photo check in September 15!!
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