It’s A Pause, Not A Stop – Keep Moving Forward

This is a big one for me. I’ve had a bad habit of beginning projects and if I didn’t complete them within short time spans, they wouldn’t get done. It was what I was known for. The projects I did complete were beautiful. It got to the point that I wouldn’t even begin a project unless I knew I could get it done with a certain time frame because I knew I would set it down and never pick it back up. I still don’t like taking commissions because of this. I also would make resolutions that I never kept – like diets, exercise, saving money and all those New Year’s resolutions that everyone makes. I would start a new diet, keep it for a few days and then crave chocolate and there it went right out the window – bye, bye diet. Or I would start an exercise plan – oooh, this is a good one – my best friend and I got a membership to a gym one time and paid it for close to a year and maybe step foot into the gym twice. Once, the day we signed up (which was the tour) and once for our “free” session with the personal trainer.

This is one that I’m still working on. My best friend and I are walking at night. It’s about ½ mile a night. That is about 15 minutes for us. We play Pokémon Go and talk as we walk. We are trying to go to a park and walk about once every week or two. If we miss a night, it’s a pause, and we pick it back up again the next night. I missed a whole week while my best friend was on vacation. My calves hurt when I started walking again after missing that week, but as my mind only believed it was a pause, not a stop, I picked back up and walked again.

Once I can walk that ½ mile with being out of breath at the end of it, there is this hill about ½ through the walk that is off to the side. It’s a little hill, but one I can’t do right now. We’ll tackle it next. Then we’ll do the walk twice. And so on… It’s a matter of adding a little at a time and making sure to have reasonable goals set as well as grand goals.

My reasonable goal is to be able to walk a mile by the end of the year (It’s Sept. 2018 as I write this.). My best friend and I want to walk a 5K (3.1 miles) in 2020. The goal after that is to be able to wear a bikini. I have never worn a bikini in my life. I’m not looking to wear one of those string bikinis. The bikini I want is one of those cute sporty ones. This gives me a long-term goal to work towards.

Each of these goals has a reward to go with them and each reward has a personal meaning to me. The Pokémon Go Accessory is something that will help me walk and get out more. It’s not something that is only a reward as it’s tech and I love tech, but it’s also something that will help me continue in my quest for better health. The trip to an amusement park is something I haven’t done in over a decade because I became too fat to fit on the rides. It was something I loved to do that became a source of embarrassment and humiliation. I will take that back. It the same with the bikini. I have never had a bikini body. I went from skinny kid to a plump teen to a pregnant teen and I never got my body back. My body has been a source of embarrassment to me for a long time. Even friends and family have made comments.

Having a goals and rewards system is helping me keep in mind that pausing is not quitting. I can keep moving forward and that baby steps will add up. It may take me a while, but I will get where I want to go. I may not get there as fast as some people, but that is okay. I am my own person and I will get there as fast as I need to.

You can do it too. Take it one day at a time. Focus on where you want to go. Figure out what steps you need to take to get there. Then enjoy the journey. You never know who you might meet along the way.

Let me know in the comments: What motivates you to make your goals come true?