Day 117 - The Airplane Principle and E+R=O

Hey sorry I have been kind of scarce lately - things are actually going really well but I have been accomplishing so much that I haven't been on the computer much. Funny how that goes hand in hand :) Anyway, just wanted to do a quick update to say that I am feeling good, getting my cardio in and had Jujitsu twice this week so my workouts have been great, and have been eating well since I am planning more ahead for things. Still working on tweaking all of that so it works just right, but definitely making progress.
I have been in major de-clutter mode lately, and it was funny because Oprah had a thing on yesterday about how the clutter in your house can make you fat and I thought hey, I'm already improving on both those counts. But it was interesting, the point was that there is an underlying reason if you have a really messy house and it transfers to a really messy (i.e. FAT, UNHEALTHY) body because you are not dealing with the core issue and you are not taking care of the things you own or yourself. So I don't really know what the underlying issue is for me, but I am cleaning both up and I am feeling spectacular! :) Having a room in my house clean, neat, and orderly is much like stepping on the scale and having the number be lower. I just get excited and feel so much better about everything. So I don't know if the two are necessarily the reason for each other, but they are definitely related.
Anyway, I am just feeling really TOGETHER for the first time in a while and it is the combination of taking control of my health, my schedule, and my home. I had really just let everything go because for some reason I felt like if one area was messed up, I might as well just let everything else go. Not consciously, of course, but certainly subconsciously. It's like that damn voice in your head that tells you the whole day is blown because you had one wrong food or even one wrong meal, so you might as well just go buck wild and start over the next day. Or next week. Or quit. I still fight that voice some days, especially when I am tired or not feeling well. But it is such a lie. Every minute is a chance to start over again, so when one thing goes to crap, because things will, it is not an excuse to throw your hands up and give up on the whole day, week, plan, whatever. Just stop, forgive yourself for the issue (if it was you that did it in the first place - of course sometimes it is out of your control) and start fresh RIGHT THEN. And I'm talking about mainly the little things - there are major things that can really throw you off track and there's nothing you can do about that, just get back when you can, but I'm talking about the daily life that we let get in the way of our goals and dreams. That kind of stuff will just keep coming up, stealing our destiny, if we let it.
So I guess what I've learned is that small corrections along the way are easier than having to make that big change later on down the road when you wake up and realize you are WAY OFF TRACK. I guess I'm just thankful that I am realizing it in many things, not just in denial like I was before. The weight loss was the first thing, then the house, and next is my business. So I am excited about the future. Because this knowledge of the past mistakes I've made will only help me the next time I find myself facing one of those "give up" moments. Because when you find yourself making changes, any progress you have is better than where you were before.
Once I heard an analogy concerning this about an airplane. You get on a plane with a flight plan for a specific destination, say Las Vegas, and as as soon as you get going, the plane is pointed more toward Denver because things happen to push you off the most direct course to get you there: wind, weather, air traffic restrictions, whatever...you never fly in an exact straight line from point A to point B. So when you get up there and get off course, do the pilots say "well we aren't pointed directly toward Las Vegas, I guess we have to give up on this flight, turn around and go back" or "we better land here in Dallas because everything is against us today to make it there in a direct line, we'll have to wait for a day when the conditions are perfect" or even "we're headed toward someplace else now, so I guess we are going to go to Denver now instead of Las Vegas, even though everyone here wants to go to Las Vegas." No, they don't say any of those things, they make small corrections during the flight to ultimately get the plane to Las Vegas. There may be times when they have to go WAY off course, if there is a severe problem, but eventually they make it to Las Vegas because that's where everyone said they wanted to go. The path they took to get there may have changed, and maybe even the time frame, but the goal never changed, and they kept toward that goal in some way with every move they made.
So when you have your goal and you have your plan, don't be a slave to the plan and lose focus of the ultimate goal. Changing a part of the plan doesn't negate the reasons for making the goal in the first place. You won't be happier going to another or lesser goal if you really wanted to reach that original goal in the first place. Giving up and going back should never be an option. Stopping and waiting for the perfect set of circumstances in order to start again is just an excuse, because perfection will never arrive. You have to make it happen. No matter what you do in the process that's not in the plan, no matter how lost you get on the way, no matter how long it takes you, no matter what anyone else says about your goal, you must be determined to get there NO MATTER WHAT. That must be where that phrase comes from: no matter what...(fill in the blank)...because there will always be something standing between you and your goal. If there wasn't, you would already have achieved it. It might be mental, physical, spiritual, financial, social, personal, any number of things. But if you really want what you have visualized your future to be, if that dream is in your heart, it is there for a reason. We were not meant to dream big dreams and struggle all our lives, never to have reached them. We were given big dreams to fight for our right to have them, celebrate when we get them, and then dream another big dream to go after.
We are the only creatures on earth who have the capacity to set goals for ourselves. Every other living thing acts on stimulus/response and instinct. We alone were made to be more, to rise above instinct and reactions and choose our destiny. There is a formula that Jack Canfield writes about in "The Success Principles" that is simply E+R=O. What that stands for is Event+Response=Outcome. Events happen to us. We do not have control over them. All that we can control is our Response to them. And that is what will determine the Outcome. We alone in this world are able to change our Response to the Events around us and get a different Outcome. If I get sick, I cannot control that, it is and Event. If I CHOOSE to Respond to it by being negative and deciding that I will give up on my weight loss plan because I am unable to exercise for a few days, my Outcome is obvious: failure to reach my goal. True, you can't help how you feel when you are sick, and if you really can't work out then you should not. Notice that I was talking about your attitude regarding that fact that you missed some workouts or didn't eat right. If you can control your Response enough even to know when you are really sick enough to not workout or eat something different versus just giving up because you are not feeling 100%, that's the first type of Response I am talking about. But the second is also important: after that Event has passed, or even during it, what is your attitude? Do you see it as a reason to stop? Or do you determine to pick right back up where you left off and keep a positive attitude the whole way through, much improving your situation? Your Response could be to ride out those days that you are truly sick enough to take a few days off, then get right back at it, and your Outcome will still be the eventual achievement of your goal. The time line may get pushed back a little, but in the grand scheme of things, does anyone really notice that you made your goals a week or month later than you said you would? And for larger goals, even being off by a few years, once you are there, I think the only person who notices you weren't there last year is you. Anyone else who is truly looking out for your best interests doesn't care WHEN you do it, just that you DO IT.
All of this makes me think of Christy, who had a series of bad Events happen to her, but her Response to all of that was very different than most people would have taken. She has chosen to work through all of the excuses she could have, and that most people would really grant her to use, and instead be positive, active, and in control of her Outcome. She is a perfect example of what I am talking about. Has she had setbacks? Of course. But she has not allowed them to interfere with her ultimate goal, and has adjusted as things have come up along the way. That is what makes her so inspiring, and why I think people are usually so in awe of most of those kind of "overcomer" stories they may hear about. Whether it's someone who was told they would never walk again, or die of cancer, or anything, and they beat the odds, it's for sure because they decided that although they cannot control the Event, they were going to control the only thing they could, their Response, and thereby trigger a much better Outcome. Is it always the Outcome we desire? Nope. That's how life is. But often our plans have flaws that we do not see, and the unexpected Outcome is as result of this, but for sure the Outcome we get by having a good Response is better than the Outcome of a bad Response. And the unexpected Outcome we may get can turn out to be even better than we had hoped for, because we cannot even imagine all of the forces that come together to shape our destiny.
What we want in life is out there. For all of us. I don't care what your past has been like or your circumstances are right now, you can change your Response and get a better Outcome. And by doing that over and over with each Event that occurs and each goal we have for our life, we will slowly work our way out of the situations that have a hold of us or the past that haunts us, turn our back on all of that, and face forward to our best days yet. Just hold on, keep pushing, stay positive, and don't ever ever EVER give up.

Integrity

This message took a lot out of me and at the same time really lifted me up writing it so I hope all of you who have been following my blog read it, take it in, and let me know what you think about it. Feel free to agree or disagree, I am interested in how others see or do not see this in their own lives. I know it's a little long, so read when convenient. Please comment!


I was listening to my daily inspiration today (Joyce Meyer) and the subject was integrity. At first I was kind of disappointed because, of all the things I need to work on in my life, I really don't feel like my integrity is an issue. Not to sound high and mighty or anything, but I have learned many lessons about being truthful from when I was young and at some point I just decided that honesty was always the best policy and from then on I have held to that pretty well.
So I almost turned it off but then I figured I would listen anyway because usually there is something good in there even if it isn't what I thought it would be and, of course, there was! (Hello God!) It talked about how integrity isn't just being honest but really more about being honest with yourself and true to what you know is right. I think that a lot of people have trouble with that, including myself. Sure, we all think we are decent, honest, people, but do we realize that how we feel about ourselves is, I believe, directly related to the number of compromises we make every day on what we know we should do versus what we actually choose to do. It certainly is for me.
It got me thinking about some of the other issues I am having in my life and how I have been trying to figure out how I got where I am in my business, finances, and overall self-esteem, and how I am always letting myself down, beating myself up, and letting myself down again for beating myself up, on and on...and BAM! it hit me - I was compromising my integrity by knowing what I should be doing and not doing it, just in little things, things no one but myself even knows about, but doing it EVERY SINGLE DAY. Over and over again. And the little things are so important because you make choices constantly every day and if you continue to make the wrong choices, against what you believe or say to yourself that you are or are not going to do, it slowly erodes your self worth little by little - like sandpaper on your soul. How does erosion happen? One little piece of dirt at a time, and before you know it, your house falls in the ocean. I know that's a little deep for a plain little blog like this, on a Monday morning no less, but I think it really important to say and really hit home for me because of this weight loss journey I have started.
You see, I have been struggling in a lot of other areas of my life besides my weight and it has really killed my confidence. I have alluded to that in other posts but have never really given any details, partly because I think that dwelling on the negative will increase the negative so I try to not talk about it much. The reality is that I was (am) hiding from a lot of those feelings (thus the name of the blog) because I just don't know what to do about them and I have become really frustrated trying to solve my own problems. I decided to let God do the work and just step back for a while and stop the self analysis. But I did know that a big part of my problem was my weight because it really really really REALLY makes me unhappy. I don't care that other people say I look great and I have nothing to worry about, or even roll their eyes like I'm some size 4 stick saying I'm fat just for the attention. I am simply good at covering it up. I wear the right clothes for my body style and wear good makeup and have trendy hair to draw attention to my face. It works. I know how I look in a mirror without clothes on (sorry for the visual) and I know how I used to look and it makes me sick. Not to say that it couldn't be worse because for sure it could be but I spent a lot of my life unhappy about how I looked and then I finally got where I wanted to be and then I lost it all. Talk about letting yourself down and beating yourself up. I specialize in that. I am positive on the outside, upbeat to others, and have an overall positive outlook on life, but I am VERY negative when it comes to my inner thoughts about myself. I wouldn't even want to be near someone who treated me the way I treat myself. Why do we let ourselves get away with that? I have been working on that, but it is something NO ONE knows about me. Not my husband, not my sister, not my best friend. Now I am releasing it into cyberspace! I know some of you have been in the same position mentally and we all have different breaking points. For me it has been brewing all this last year and finally I said enough.
So, anyway, back to the subject which is to say that the first thing I decided to tackle was my weight while I let God work on my other problems. That is how I came back to Adam's blog and then on this crazy train we are calling the "group shred" :) I mean that in the most positive way, I love this, and that's, again, what I am trying to get at. I found that once I finally put my foot down and said "That's enough!", cleaned up my eating, and started working out, my self esteem has really surged (ha ha ha you know like "metabolic surge"...okay, dumb joke). And I didn't really know why I felt so good doing this program other than I remembered that I really do love exercise and lifting weights and it does release positive chemicals in your brain, but more than that, it came down to INTEGRITY.
I am finally doing what I have been telling myself (and, incidentally, what God has been telling me) to do and my integrity has been set right. I think when we continue to know what we should do and what we deep down want to be doing but give ourselves permission to compromise, our integrity slips away little by little and we really begin to dislike ourselves. And being around someone you dislike all day (namely yourself) really steals your joy. I mean, maybe all of you out there have already figured this out but for me it has been a revelation, finally understanding why I was feeling so bad before and so much better now.
Don't get me wrong, I have a LOOOOOOONNNNNNNGGGGGGG way to go, in many areas of my life, but I think these little victories of continuing to eat right, say no to the bad, say yes to the good, exercising, and being accountable for what I have said I am going to do, are beginning the repair of my soul. When I are about to make any decision, I always have two voices (at least!) in my head. I usually call them the angel and the devil (like in cartoons when someone has them pop up on each shoulder, you know?) and they do battle for what I am actually going to do in that situation. Sometimes the angel speaks louder. Usually the devil would, and he would win the argument. Again, I'm not talking big things, just those Do I eat that piece of candy? Do I stop for fast food? Do I really feel like working out? Should I make those phone calls I promised myself I would make but no one knows I was going to so do I really have to? kinds of decisions. I think those are much harder. Big decisions are somewhat more cut and dry (dried? whatever, you know what I mean). There are lots of places in this world to get advice on the bigger questions of life. But who can tell you if you should stop at the fast food place? Only yourself. And if you choose against yourself, your integrity (and self-esteem) goes by the wayside. Someone once said that if you keep letting things slide, they are all sliding somewhere, and eventually you're going to run up against that pile. Well I sure did and let me tell you, digging out of that pile is a lot worse than just doing the right thing to begin with.
So lately, since I have started this journey, the angel has been speaking louder. Or maybe I have just been listening to her more. And I love her. The angel rocks! Because the angel is me. The holy spirit me, the REAL me, the me that has been patiently waiting to get out, voicing her opinion all along, just wanting to be heard and having her volume turned up. And that devil? Well, he's really The Devil, and he'll steal all of our dreams if we let him - one tiny, sandpapering, decision at a time.