Big changes require little steps

“That’s what it takes to get what you want. Not big scary leaps once a year. It takes small, but irritating moves every single day.”
― Mel Robbins, Stop Saying You're Fine: Discover a More Powerful You

Who among us isn’t always looking for shortcuts. We want a faster, easier, simpler, more efficient way to do everything—whether getting to work or fixing dinner or paying our bills online. We want to save money, time, energy & effort. Anything that promises to help us reach our goals faster and easier, we’re all over it.

There’s no magic pill for success. Regardless of how hard you work or how lofty your goals or how much stands in the way of achieving them, the most likely obstacle to keep you from reaching them is YOU.

I have a friend who has been trying to lose weight and get into shape for as long as I’ve known her. She has tried every diet plan and pill you can imagine. She isn’t the only one. More money is spent on losing weight every year than nearly anything else. Like much of the rest of the world, my friend has spent the last twenty years in search of that one diet, that one discovery that will expose what has kept her from losing weight and keeping it off. There isn’t one. It isn’t her meal plan or eating schedule or exercise routine or lack of support from family. She is the only one standing in her way. The key to weight loss success—as well as the key to every other kind of success—is to keep doing little things every day and for the rest of her life. Get off the couch and move. Push away from the table before her belly is full. Eat more lean green foods than processed food. And so on and so on.

Writing that won’t sell diet books. It’s depressing. No one wants to hear it. We want an earth-shaking thing that will create all the changes we’re looking for in one fell swoop. That big thing doesn’t exist. Just little things we do over and over to get what we want. We are the only ones in the way of achieving our dreams. Until we learn to stop doing the little things that sabotage our progress, like sleeping in, wasting time on FaceBook, avoiding a part of the job we dread, or giving into distractions, we’ll never get what we want.

If you’re seriously looking to make a change in your life, start implementing little positive habits into your day. Make time for them. Do them regularly and religiously and stick with them even when you aren’t seeing results.

Remember potty training? Argh! Who wants to remember that? If your child was like mine it didn’t happen overnight. It was weeks, and maybe months, of tears and frustration—mostly on my part—and countless mad dashes to the bathroom and the little potty before you finally got it through the baby’s head this was the way it was supposed to work.

Like me, you probably got plenty of well-intentioned advice about how to make the process go smoother. Basically, though, the outcome wasn’t up to you. It was up to the little guy on the seat of honor staring up at you. We kept doing the same little things over and over—watching for subtle clues that somebody had to go, running up and down the hall with a squirming toddler, praising and clapping when things went well, and cleaning up messes when they didn’t. It wasn’t rocket science, and there was no rushing the process no matter how much we wanted to. Just repeating the same task over and over until potty independence was achieved.

Any goal worth achieving works the same way. We’ll get more advice than we want. Some will be good. Much will be a waste of time. But it all goes back to who’s in charge. YOU. Others can help and offer advice, but we’re the one standing in our own way. Cheering ourselves on when things go well and cleaning up messes when they don’t.

Making time to exercise when we don't have the time

I’ve said it. You’ve said it. We’ve all acted on it. We don’t have time to exercise. I’m sure, for you, just like for me, it’s true. We are crazy busy. Between work, kids, writing, errands, running my Scentsy business, housework, and quality time with Hubby…Good grief, I made myself tired just by creating this list.

How in the world are we supposed to eke another hour out of our day for exercise? The answer is, you won’t find the time. You must make the time. Create it. We always make time for what’s important. I spent an hour this morning on the phone with a friend. I have a lot to do today before I head out to work, but somehow I made the time in my schedule to talk to her because it was important to me. I have another friend in the hospital. Between work obligations today, I’ll make a detour to visit her. Not on my docket, but I’ll make the time.

In November I’m devoting three whole days to attend my son’s wedding out of state. Believe me, I don’t have an extra three days lying around. Still, it never occurred to me to tell him I’m too busy to come. Now, if you asked me to babysit your kids for three days I would immediately say I don’t have time. And I wouldn’t be exaggerating. But attending my son’s wedding…I’ll make the time.

We make time for what matters.

Exercise needs to matter. We all know the results of a sedentary lifestyle. Forget vanity—though, who am I kidding, that is a big consideration. What about getting out of a chair? I see people younger than me struggle to do that simple motion we all do several times a day. If getting out of a chair is a tough, how will we manage a flight of stairs or a long hallway or chasing butterflies with a child or walking the dog? Even if you aren’t training for a decathlon we have lives to live. I don’t want to be the grandma on the porch. I want to be the grandma in the yard chasing the butterflies or pushing a swing or skipping rocks across the creek. If I happen to still look good in a pair of Capris and cute strappy sandals, well, that’s just a bonus.

Don’t try to find the time. Make the time. Every day. Because it matters. You matter.

It’s not that hard to fit exercise into your day. My favorite way is while watching TV. You can get a heart pumping fifteen-minute workout between commercial breaks. Starting at one break, close the chip bag, get off the couch, and do 50 jumping jacks, 40 squats, 30 burpees, 20 pushups, and 10 lunges on each leg. By the start of the next commercial break you will have gone through this routine twice.

If that wasn’t enough for you, spend the next 15 minutes doing 100 crunches, 3 sets of 12 reps each of bicep curls, overhead presses, and tricep dips. You don't even need to use weights in the beginning. You can add or delete anything you choose and increase reps when you're ready. It’s your workout. Just keep your heart rate up and have fun. By the time your TV program is over, you’ve completed your workout and feel a lot better than if you had stayed on the couch munching Doritos.

As with any workout routine of any type or any intensity, consult your doctor first. Make it fun. Make it a priority. You’re worth it. Your future health is worth it. Your vanity is worth it. Your family and loved ones are worth it.

Comment below on your favorite or most ingenious ways you make time for exercise in your already crammed daily schedule.

Take it Like a Man

Summer break is only two weeks old and everyone is already posting pics all over social media of the amazing things they’re doing. Everybody but me. So far my summer is going like every other season of the year. Work. Writing. Dinner. Dishes. Laundry. Repeat. I can’t help but wonder if summer is any different for those posting all the pics. Or are they faking it to convince themselves as much as to convince me?

Do you ever compare yourself to someone else? I think we all do. The other day my friend posted this pic on FaceBook.

She is a wonderful person—funny, loving, generous, beautiful inside and out—the best kind of friend. Even with all those things going for her, she sees herself in a negative light because of how she thinks she looks. Isn’t that sad? We are all created in God’s image and have something to offer the world. But it’s easy to forget when it seems everyone else is the perfect size, looks great in a swimsuit, has raised beautiful, successful children, and has never put her foot in her mouth.

I recently read a study that showed men spend three times as much time looking in the mirror as women. While women focus on what they believe are their negative qualities, men only see what they consider strengths.

How can men overlook their faults while women are unable to look past a simple flaw?
I have never heard my husband fret with his buddies over putting on a few pounds over the holidays. If one of them brings it up, it’s to brag about it. I heard one say as long as stores keep stocking bigger shirts he’ll eat whatever he wants.

Not women. If a friend loses weight, we belittle ourselves for not sticking to our diets. We might even secretly hope she’s been sick or depressed, and we aren’t complete failures that we couldn’t lose while she made it look so effortless.

It isn’t only our weight that makes us compare ourselves unfavorably to others. Have you ever told a joke that fell flat? When men do it, they don’t seem to notice. If they do, they shrug it off and tell the same joke 100 more times, thinking for sure it’ll be a hit this time. Not women. We punish ourselves for months and dread the memory of the time we embarrassed ourselves at a party. Even though in truth most every witness to our social faux pas doesn’t even remember it.

Maybe we give ourselves more credit than we deserve. When we embarrass ourselves or gain too much weight or don’t have vacations as interesting as someone else, we imagine the whole world is judging us. In truth, the world is too busy examining their own embarrassing moments and has forgotten all about ours.

As men seemed to have figured out, we women need to learn not to take ourselves too seriously. It’s a given we’re going to say dumb things. We’re going to walk out of a restroom with our skirt caught in our pantyhose—figuratively speaking I hope. Life happens. When it does, man up. Laugh off those less than stellar moments and don’t forget no one’s summer vacation is nearly as fun or angst free as it appears on social media.

Seize the Day

Know the true value of time; snatch, seize and enjoy every moment of it. No idleness...never put off till tomorrow what you can do today. - Lord Chesterfield

I have a friend who says he’s always wanted to write a book. Actually, just about every person I meet tells me this. Then they say they would, but they are too busy. They offer to tell me their idea and let me write it. Okay, that’s not going to happen. I have enough of my own ideas, thank you very much.

Even though my friend insists he doesn't have time to write, he apparently enjoys discussing his ideas with me. He is a busy man. He has a family and a full-time job and property that needs maintained. But he also watches sports on television every weekend. He is nearly addicted to computer games and loves surfing the Net for news coverage.

All of us—no matter how busy we are—find time for what’s important to us. If it matters enough, we'll carve the time from somewhere in our schedules. Writing is hard. It’s lonely and usually more work than it’s worth. It's easier and a lot more fun to sit around and talk about the art of writing and discuss plotlines and characters than to actually fasten our butts to the chair and put words on the page. We put it off. We say; “Someday”.

The problem is, most of us do not put enough value on our time. Ask any successful person. It’s our most valuable commodity. Think back a few years to what you knew you should do and really meant to get around to. Were you thinking about contributing more money to your 401K? Or contributing any money to a 401K? What if you had started ten years ago? Or twenty? Just think how sweet your portfolio would look today.

Did you entertain notions of beginning an exercise plan at the first of the year? Maybe you didn’t, thinking you’d start after the weather got warm enough to get outside to exercise. Now it’s nearly June, and you’re no closer to your fitness goals than you were last June. Did you dream of starting a home-based business? You knew the steps you needed to take, but it was so daunting and overwhelming, you never got around to it.

Have you put off cultivating relationships with loved ones? Maybe there is something standing between you and a family member. A past hurt or wrong that left you both bitter and disillusioned. Time is passing and you want to make amends, but you don’t know how. Or you don’t want to make the first move.

The older I get—and, boy, have I gotten older in the last few years—the more I realize time is so so short. It is truly precious. We must seize every moment and hang on. All too soon, we’ll be looking back, wondering why we aren’t closer to our goals. Closer to what truly matters. We’ll wish we had acted sooner. Saved more money. Asked forgiveness. Offered it when no one asked. Written that book. Planted a tree outside the kitchen window. Fallen in love. Inspired someone.

Make each day count. Stop wasting time & seize each day you’re given.