Progress and Perfection
By
October 7, 2018
Happy Rainy Weekend—
We don’t get them often, so when we do, I enjoy the excuse for an indoor-get-things-done kind of day. I hope you are enjoying the contrast to our typically sunny skies. For those of you on the Whole Life Challenge, congrats on an awesome first week. I have enjoyed reading your reflections and chatting with you in person on how this is going for you, your struggles, and what you are figuring out about your habits and thought processes. I’m going to springboard off the WLC for this week’s blog post…Progress and Perfection.
Many of you have stumbled in one way or another off the starting line. Perhaps you got back from a trip only to realize that there was no compliant food in your refrigerator. Or, you came down with a cold that put your exercise plans on hold indefinitely. Or maybe you just found yourself ordering that drink and you can’t quite explain why. While all of those things are less than ideal, they do not equal failure in the WLC or in your pursuit of raising the bar on your health and fitness. They are merely reminders that bad habits don’t die without a fight. Almost none of us get it right the first time out of the shoot. Often the expectation that we will or that we should is the harshest critic when things go off the rails. The victory belongs to those who are not afraid to pick themselves up, dust themselves off, and dive right back in. There is nothing to gain in wallowing in the missteps; the win is in reflecting on how to learn from the mistake and wasting no time in trying again.
But there is a very real risk that a small setback leads to a wholesale throwing in of the towel and questioning if we have what it takes to make a change after all. If we can’t do it perfectly, we won’t do it at all. Sounds silly, I know, but it happens a lot. I bet we can all think of a time when that way of thinking has derailed us. It is notoriously pervasive with nutrition and exercise goals as those are some of the hardest habits to break and rebuild. There will ALWAYS be setbacks. The true measure of our progress is how quickly we get back to the hard work of change. I write to you today to encourage you to go back to whatever that work is for you. Stop believing that you aren’t strong enough, smart enough, or motivated enough and just get back to the grind. You’ve got a whole army of like minded, motivated people on the same journey that are there to lend a hand if you need it.
Make it an awesome week.
.jpeg)
