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Motivation for today

I posted this in a group and was encouraged to put it here.

Soemtimes we let the scale get us down (or some other "measure" we use to evaluate our progress). When that happens, often we get discouraged and give up--for a few days or for longer.

I think it's important that we learn what we are doing. We are not losing weight, we are becoming healthier, and I've decided (because there's a kid learning to juggle in the book I'm reading) that it's a lot like learning to juggle (which is about *learning to juggle*, not about keeping all the balls in the air).

At first you drop the ball a lot, but that doesn't mean you're not learning to juggle. The only way you fail at learning to juggle is if you get so discouraged you leave the balls lying there on the ground and don't work at it any more.

So you pick them up, but you're not "starting over" learning to juggle. You've already learned some things and you still know them, right? You just have to keep going.

As time passes, you drop the balls less often. When you do drop one, or even if they all collide in midair, that doesn't mean you're failing at learning to juggle. The only way to learn to juggle is to pick up the balls you drop and keep going.

After a long time, you can keep maybe five balls in the air most of the time--but once in a while you still drop one. If you drop one, does that mean you have to start over learning to juggle? Heck no! You know how already, you just missed, that's all!

Okay...see the parallel? We tend to think that our goal is to lose weight, not to learn how to be healthier, and we want to be able to keep all the balls up from the beginning. So we eat a piece of chocolate cake and we feel like a failure...but we're not because we're learning. We just pick up and go on.

Over time, understanding that every slip is not failure and that the process is a long one, we get better and better at it. When we do miss a week of workouts or eat a bag of chips with sour-cream dip, we cut our losses and keep on going. Over time we have more and more healthy habits and fewer and fewer unhealthy ones--but none of this happened instantly just because we wanted it to. It happened as part of a process of weeding out unhealthy habits. It's not a matter of trying again--it's all one big long, steady TRY that we are maintaining.

And the longer we keep trying, the better we'll get--at juggling balls or at living healthy lifestyles.

And I'll add to this my current warcry--

WORK HARD PLAY HARD REST EASY.

mejaka


Wed. Jul 12, 10:30pm

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This is a great analogy! Thank you for sharing it. It's reflective of my experiences over the past six years, when I've been concentrating and being conscious of my choices in regards to food and exercise. Even when I slip up now, the choices are so much better than the ones I made a couple years ago and it's much easier to not lose focus.

I topped out over 300 pounds and gave away all my skinny clothes because I never thought I would wear them again. Now, they would be too big! If I can learn to "juggle", anyone can!

Wednesday, July 12, 2006, 10:46 PM

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Thanks mejaka

with all the summer temptations, this is great to remember. I may not be making megaprogress, but I am certainly "juggling" better than I did last summer.

Thursday, July 13, 2006, 11:13 AM

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This is very good and so true, thanks for sharing

Friday, July 14, 2006, 9:38 AM

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Thansk you so much!
I recently havent made the best substitions for my food but they are better than 2 yrs ago. I will be sure to keep trying and juggle ! ;) LOL

Saturday, July 15, 2006, 10:38 AM

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