What Reminds You of Your Real Goals?

 

I often lose sight of what I really want.  It is easy to get caught up in things that don’t really matter, distractions and avoidances that help dilute the sting of failure when trying to reach a goal.  Sometimes those coping mechanisms are in direct opposition to my true desires.

I can get depressed or bored thinking about my health problems and it makes me want a Monte Cristo sandwich or something fried dipped in ranch dressing.  It is no secret that I have overeating tendencies and I also have what I like to refer to as “blood sugar issues”.   Hyperglycemia can lead to so many poor outcomes.  I am fully aware of how losing one’s eyesight, kidneys, or legs can be devastating to quality of life. I have personally wrapped the stumps of newly amputated legs of diabetic patients. And then watched the patients call their families and friends to sneak them thick stacks of tortillas or a 2 liter of cola. Even when loss is fresh, and literally painful, old habits die hard.

I have considered tattooing the likeness of my kidney or heart on my arm as a reminder that what I eat might take those things from me someday. It is damn hard to keep motivation going, to keep goals and realities at the forefront of my thoughts, intentions, and actions.  Ultimately it is my desire to live a long and healthy life.  To spend as much time as possible with people I love doing things I enjoy.  In order to do those things I need my organs and my ability to walk, to see.  So why can’t I be honest with myself when I binge eat a cake, that I am sorta killing myself in shortened life or functionality?  The ideal would be to preserve my health, not squander it foolishly.

I have heard people say that motivation has to be internal, that if you aren’t changing for yourself the habits aren’t likely to stick.  But I also think that reasons for trying something hard have to be profound enough emotionally to cause lasting consciousness surrounding the goal. Possibly losing my kidney at some unconfirmed distant date just isn’t dramatic enough for me to think about it daily while I pick my food from the refrigerator. I am more likely to be mentally going over my immediate to-do list or wondering where I left my car keys than to be avoiding future loss at any given moment.

Do I not want it bad enough? How can I keep my goals and values in my every day choices? For me this is more important than ever. I have had some serious health scares lately, and The Hubs was just diagnosed with a chronic condition. Our household is in need of a major lifestyle overhaul, and I need to set a new baseline of habits while the drama and motivation is high.

I think the key is to be self-reflective enough to direct a concerted effort towards change while building habits and routines that eventually become automatic. It is too exhausting to think about myself and my fucking kidneys all the time. I would rather be healthy the easy way, where I make good choices and have no weaknesses, no doubt!  This may be a fairy tale, but I do believe there is an in-between, where I live truer to my personal ideals and forsake some of the distractions.

More Action, Less Distraction

More Action

• Journaling every week to check in with myself on progress

Writing helps me to organize my thoughts and outline plans for the future.  I like being able to make lists, to reflect, and refer to ideas later.  I get a better sense of accomplishment when I finish something I’ve planned out concretely.

• Talking about where I want to be and how I can get there

Just like with journaling, verbalizing goals and the work I’m doing for them makes things real.  Sharing what’s important to me helps me build a network of support.

• Picking habits to make and work on them frequently

Real change happens when thoughts, feelings, and behaviors align.  Being persistent to develop new routines takes focus, so acting on these every day until they are incorporated into the daily workflow is key.  Rewiring the brain with pathways may take awhile, but it is totally possible.

Less Distraction

• Stopping to identify “reasons” for not making good decisions

Every time I have the opportunity to choose between something better for me and something worse, I need to examine why I am drawn to the worse thing in the first place.  Often I can see objectively, if I simply slow down, what negative emotion is behind my impulses.  The same goes for avoidances—veering off track is a way for fear to outpace progress, so getting rid of them as soon as they are noticed is a good thing.

• Making time and reserving energy to do the hard work

We only have so many hours in the day, so getting rid of unnecessary time-sucks is the only way to make room for the things we really want.  Energy is also finite.  Creating a time and energy budget of sorts helps to prioritize how we spend our days.

• Getting rid of bad routines

For every good routine there is probably a bad one to ditch.  At first it may seem painful, but anchors must be reeled in if I want to sail off into the sunset!