no excuses!

Today's topic..excuses! As David J. Schwartz calls it in his book "The Magic of Thinking Big"-excusitis, see chapter 2. Most of us have them for the things that we need to get done, but don't want to, right? We often say "I don't have the time". Well, we make the time if it is our priority...now you may be thinking, "no, really, I don't have the time!" Let's break it down a bit. Get a piece of paper and write down your goal. For this example, I will use my goal of getting to my ideal goal weight. If I think about each thing that I do during the day, is it leading me closer to or further away from my dream? (thanks Matt Abraham for that quote). If I know that I am short on time and need to get some food for my dinner, going to a fast food restaurant and getting fries, though they are quick, that would not lead me closer to my goal, but if I run into a grocery store and grab a banana and some rice cakes or nuts, that would get the meal quickly AND move me closer to my goal. Also, if I get home from work after a hard day, and choose to sit on the couch and turn on the TV and do nothing, that will not lead me closer to my goal. I am not saying that TV is a terrible thing necessarily, but it is not leading me closer to my goal, but goign to the gym will. I may be more tired, but I just take a shower and head to bed, right? So, I am challenging you to kick the excuses that you have for whatever goal you are reaching for. Let me know how it turns out!!

So, why do I bring up this topic tonight? Let me tell you about my day. I drove 20 min to an appointment, then drove an hour to a house sitting job, then drove an hour to my nanny job, then drove an hour to a house where I checked in with a family who is having me pet sit starting tomorrow, then 10 min drive to home...8pm when I got home. Though I was tired, I felt like I had been doing so much sitting, I wanted to work out. All day I had been telling myself, "when you get home about 8, you are going to try out your new water shoes and do some swimming and running in the pool for an hour." Oh, I needed to eat at 9:30. Well, that gave me 90 minutes, but since I had been driving so much and not had much activity, I felt tired and wanted to sleep, veg out, read, hang out on the computer. I thought about my goal. I looked at my goals that are up for me to see. Then, I went swimming/running in the pool for an hour, did 5 more lengths of the pool than last time. The pool was soooo cold when I got in, but then I got started and it felt great to do! I came home and had a quick dinner, and then changed clothes and went back to the gym because I knew I had about an hour more that I could work out before having to get to bed and I wanted to get more calories burned. Did I want to go back? Nope, I wanted to hang out in sweats, but again, revisited my goal and went to the gym and did weeek 3, day 3 of C25K!!! I looked ahead at next week, and I am terrified to do it! Oh, I also did a few weights.

Jillian talks a ton about goal setting in her book "Winning by Losing" if you are looking for some help with that. In addition, in "The Magic of Thinking Big", chaper 12 is a great resource for that too!!

For today, I got 6.5 hours of sleep, 1717 calories consumed, 3610 calories burned for a total deficit of 1893!

Thanks for reading! What's your excuse for not moving forward?

Learning and growing into a healthier me!
~Cindy Lou