Are you the 1 or the 20?

I have a confession. I didn't get a chance to eat yesterday and by the time I got home from work just after 8pm, I was starving. My lunch date had to be re-scheduled so I skipped lunch. I'd gone from the office to a 4:30 and then a 6pm meeting and never took time to eat throughout the day. Excuses. Excuses. By the time I got home, I would have eaten anything -- and I almost did.
There's a lesson for me in that. Take care of myself throughout the day. Don't put it off until later.

Procrastination is deadly. I put off eating yesterday, telling myself I'd get to it later, and at the end of the day, I sabotaged myself and went to bed angry that I had let myself down -- and the cycle continued as I told myself, tomorrow will be better.

Tomorrow is now today -- and my opportunity to do better.

I agree with Lisa Anderson who wrote, “Fear stops a lot of people. Fear of failure, of the unknown, of risk. And it masks itself as procrastination.”

Is it losing weight I fear, or the focused attention I require in order to lose weight? Am I not procrastinating as much as being lazy?

Weighty questions on an emtional issue, but then, weight loss is an emotional issue. It is tied into my emotional fibre, into my habitual thinking, my belief systems about what I do or do not deserve.

Statistics show that only 1 in 20 people who buy a self-help book, take a seminar or listen to a CD will ever complete the whole thing. It's not that we don't want to make the changes, it's just that we want the changes to happen without our having to change. On the flip side of that coin, when I ask myself, Which group do I want to be part of, the 1 or the 20?, my answer is automatically, I want to be the successful 1. Reality tells me I'm part of the 20! What's holding me back?

According to Mark Joyner, a motivational speaker and writer, our self-limiting beliefs and attitudes hold us back from achieving greatness. These beliefs can be placed into 11 main categories that result in our mental attitudes which set us up for failure:

1) Self-Image - this is who I am, this is how I eat.
2) Failure Magnified - failures are mentally magnified and given life through attention, making success feel impossible, causes hopelessness
3) Blame - not feeling responsible/blaming outside influences for failures/situations
4) Doubt - disbelief in your ability to succeed/get job done
5) Positive Anchors - positive feelings/associations to (foods, restaurants and tastes) that do not support your goal
6) Negative Anchors - negative feelings/associations to (foods, people and tastes) that are supportive toward achieving your goal
7) Worry - focusing primarily on what is not perfect/what could go wrong (tastes, textures, colors, missing out)
8) Job Is "Huge" - the inability to mentally "chunk down" responsibilities into easy to handle individual tasks -precursor to doubt (the rest of my LIFE doing this?!)
9) Mistakes Are "Huge" - blowing up to the impact of mistakes, setbacks, delays
10) Disasterizing - mental focus/looping of the worst possible outcomes
11) Physical Symptoms - disease, shaking, panic, sleep problems, digestive problems caused by negative stress programs.

Joyner professes that every situation in our life can be measured against these categories. Not getting the success at work you want? Perhaps it's because you make a habit of blaming others or doubting yourself. Not finishing that project you keep saying you need to do? Perhaps it's because you make a habit of catastrophizing every situation focussing on the sheer magnitude of what needs to be done.

When I start to measure my reality against the list, I see where my thinking stinks!

There's only one thing I can do. Clean up the mess -- unless I choose to live with the stink!

Reality is, I don't want to live with the sour stench of fuzzy thinking. I want to get real in my life.

The only way to do that is to accept reality, as it is, not as I'd like it to be. The joy of accepting what is means I don't have to pretend I'll get to it later. I don't have to pretend I can change it... tomorrow. I want to be part of the successful group. I want to be the 1 not the 20. To do that requires I look at the self-limiting beliefs, that I take responsiblity for myself right now and throughout the day and turn up for me.

Focussed attention, I can do it. I accept my habitual thinking gets in the way of my achieving my goals. I accept I can take charge, right now!

I create what I fear. To change my habitual thinking, I chose to be aware of what I'm thinking so that what I do reflects my goal, not my fear. When I fear not sticking to my goal of losing weight, I am focussing my attention on the negative value. When I accept my fear, when I awake to it and stand in it, I no longer fear it.

So, for today, I will be the 1 who takes takes positive action and be all that I am meant to be.