As promised, an update on my new ‘ Ready, Reset, Go’ focus. If you didn’t read the first post, you may want some background so click to read it here. As expected, some revelations have entered the forward planning for this epic adventure.
THE PROCESS
My good friend and amazingly talented psychologist Nancy Morris and I had a lengthy discussion regarding weight loss and fitness. I believe that to succeed at something, you need to fall in love with the process. If you plant a garden and hope to have an abundant crop, you need to get up every single day and be excited about all the watering, weeding, cultivating, hard work. etc. that are necessary for your plants to flourish. It is the ‘process’ that gets you to the goal, your ‘why’.
YOUR ‘WHY’
Nancy believes that ‘why you are doing this’ is of utmost importance. She says that if you have a deep-seated, passionate reason for doing something, your brain will assist you in getting there. I really can’t argue about that because I also believe that having a huge ‘why’ is vital to anything you decide to do, especially if you are effecting a major life change such as creating health, weight loss and fitness. Losing weight and getting fit are not simple projects to accomplish. The blood, sweat, toil and tears are real and being a long process, your ‘why’ needs to be rock solid.
MAYBE THE COMBO?
All of this to let you know that I needed to make adjustments to my process shortly after I began the health/fitness quest. I had resolved in the initial stages of my planning to add 500 steps per day to my routine until I reached the recommended 10,000 steps per day. This proved to be much more difficult than I actually imagined. 500 additional steps doesn’t seem like a lot, but when you’re used to being a couch potato and you haven’t exercised to any great extent in a very long time, going from 2,000 steps a day to 2,500 the next day is fairly simple. Trying to get to 3,000 the next day is much more difficult. By the time I had reached 4,000 steps per day, getting to 4,500 the next day proved to be extremely challenging. I still haven’t taken my eyes off the prize, so the ‘why’ is still solidly in place. But the process seems to have hit a plateau. What to do?
IT’S OKAY TO CHANGE THE PROCESS
Realizing that if I didn’t make adjustments the mission could stall prompted me to re-evaluate and regenerate the process. Apparently at this point in my metamorphosis, a step count increase of 500 per day was not terribly well thought out. I had simply picked a number and flown with it. So I did some research, found that my initial process was flawed and changed the number to something more usually recommended by fitness gurus. For the past two days I have again found myself in love with the process and the ‘why’ hasn’t changed. I still know where I’m going. It’s just going to take me a bit longer to get there.
NOT A FAILURE
“I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” That was Thomas Edison’s response when he was asked about the thousands of times he had not achieved his goal of creating a functional lightbulb. I don’t see revamping the process as a failure. I see it as a necessary change to the process to achieve my ‘why’. Focus on the all-important ‘why’ and accept that it is okay to modify the process to achieve. Focus on the destination but make sure you are loving the trip. Sounds solid to to me. Thanks, Nancy!
As you know, I end all blog posts with something to think about, but I suspect the quote from Edison above will serve that purpose today.
Saul Jacobson 
The process you are going through Saul, sounds remarkably like the one I am, though mine as you know is a plan to financial wealth: last year’s goal was quite lofty and I had to interject a little more “realism” into it for this year and going forward. My process is the same and my “why” as not changed. When I read your plan to increase your steps by 500/day, I thought that was a huge ambition without giving your body time to adjust to each increase. Stay strong. I’ll be following…