Day 54

After a month and a half I'm starting to see the numbers actually go down! It's slow progress, for sure, I've had to do a lot of muscle building (and I'm not nearly done) to get here. But, the number progress is happening just in time!

You see, my husband is a total cheater pants. By which I mean he has perfect genes when it comes to fitness. He can eat just about whatever he wants, not exercise, and not gain weight. And when we start exercising together, he usually shoots right past me in terms of visible progress. It's like the weight just falls off of him!

Now, I've never been a terribly competitive person. If I'm not pretty darn sure I'll win anyway, I tend to just not participate. I'm not the kid who can be goaded into climbing the rope in gym class because some other kid said I couldn't. It's just not in my nature to compete with people, and especially not physically. When I have been involved in competitions, it was more for the fun of the activity than the competition itself. I didn't exactly care if I won (although I didn't much like losing either).

All of that changes with my husband. He knows that as soon as he says "Bet you can't do it" I'm going to get it done. I don't know why, but with him my whole perspective just changes. I even have to keep my eyes closed when we're on the ellipticals at the gym together, because it takes a higher level of work to get his heart rate up into the cardio range and all my brain sees is "HE'S DOING MORE RPMs THAN ME!"

Now, if I can mange this new-found competitive nature properly, it becomes a great tool for me. In a competition against my husband I'll work harder to win than I would in a competition against anyone else. Knowing this, I've been trying to get him to start a year-long get-back-in-shape thing with me for the past few months.

Well, now we have an elliptical at home and he's started using it - which is as good as an agreement to compete in my mind! So now I'm officially in competition with him.

And I will win.

Here's the terms.

We both eat the same thing every day anyway, so we're not going to be focusing on that.  But I have a designated notebook for each of us. And each day I'm going to write down weight for the day and what exercise happened when. Winning will be losing the most weight the fastest and making the most progress in capability the fastest. So, for example, if he's lost more than I have at the end of the year but I've gone from two miles in 30 minutes to 5 miles in 45 minutes, we tie. The goal is progress! We won't track RPMs or things like that just because our bodies are so different, and two winning qualifications is probably enough.

Really, it's all in good fun and it's just an excuse for me to try to beat him at something. Whether he keeps competing with me or not, I'll keep at it because my goal is bigger than the competition. But trying to win against him is fun in the meantime!

Day 45

I've been focusing a lot on weight loss and fitness with this blog so far. But if you'll remember, there are other goals I'm working on. I'm working on becoming a better leader and growing my business team, and on becoming more organized. I've decided to drop the goal of finishing three blankets by the end of the year. I've needed to prioritize some things and hobbies always fall into the least important categories for me.

Weight loss is easy to talk about. There's a lot of change, and a lot of emotion, that goes into weight loss. But today I want to talk about the other goals.

First, my goal to become a better leader. I learned, in my studies, that this would require first getting myself into a state of fully self-disciplined. In order to be the best leader I can be, I need to be a good example and I need to be consistent. I've been working on those two things a lot, and boy is it taking a lot of work! Overall my progress has been slow but satisfying. I've worked my daily success habits into my life on a truly daily basis, which is allowing me to learn more than I ever thought I would once I finished high school!

I'm spending time learning about the leaders I admire so that I can better model myself after them.

An important distinction: when working on yourself be careful that you aren't trying to *be* the other person. There's one of them for a reason, just like there's one of you for a reason. You can emulate someone without imitating them, and you'll find yourself better off for it.

In the process of my growth as a leader, I'm doing a lot of reflecting. I've had to spend a lot of time deciding who I want to be, what type of person I want to be, and discovering the steps to get there. It's not easy! But it's so worth it. Already I'm noticing marked improvement, as I compare myself this year to myself exactly a year ago. I will often encounter and overcome a difficult situation and find myself looking at it in retrospect and thinking "I didn't handle that as well as I want to, but I did handle it a lot better than I would have a year ago."

This isn't an excuse for me to stop growing. I don't think "Well, I'm better than last year and that's good enough!" But I do remind myself that progress forward is progress forward and not to be undermined. If I'm not where I used to be and where I am today is better than where I used to be then I am on the right track and can continue on with only minor adjustments, assured that I will soon get to the place that I'm trying to end up at.

Developing my business team has gone a bit slower. I've had to take some time and re-evaluate what the qualities I'm looking for in my teammates really are. In the past I've been flexible in this, having more of a come-as-you-are mentality that allowed anyone onto my team and into my inner circle.

I've since learned that I can't continue this way. Many people aren't headed the same direction that I'm headed. They don't want the same things out of life, don't hold similar values to mine, and aren't willing to work as hard as I am.

 That's ok. That doesn't mean there's something wrong with them or that I don't still love them as they are and where they are. But it does mean that their place in life is not to be on my team. Teammates need to have the same objective, and be in agreement about how to reach that objective, otherwise the team goes nowhere. It also means that they most certainly shouldn't be in my inner circle - in that group of people that is so close to my heart that they can actually affect my attitudes and perceptions. Allowing people with conflicting goals and values into that inner circle will only bring strife and frustration to all of us.

Thinking this way is something of a contradiction to the way I was raised. Even as I type this I can hear my mother in the back of my mind, encouraging me to love and accept everyone, to let everyone onto the team and make everyone feel included and equal. I've learned from my mentors that while I can accept and love everyone, I cannot afford to let everyone on the team. And not everyone is equal at every part of the game. Sometimes, one person's skills will be more valuable to the team - more needed in that moment - than the skills another person has. That's the point of the team.

And so, with my team developing slowly but surely and solidly, I am satisfied that I'm making good progress toward this goal.

The second important goal is really a part of the first, and that is to become more organized. I can't be an effective leader if I don't know what my next move is, when or where I'm meeting the next person, or whether I have the tools I need. I've made significant progress here!

I've gotten my filing down to a habit - regulating any overflow to a task on the first day of each month. My toolbox (filled with catalogs, demo product, and info kits) is fully stocked and organized so I can just put it in my trunk and take it with me anywhere. I've begun stocking extras of product that I know my customers and I will need on a regular basis, and this is on a shelving unit in the corner of my husband's office. Although not perfect, I've gotten most of the household chores down to a routine and I'm usually prepared at any time to have company within 5 minutes.

My former roommate can attest to the significant progress that one indicates!

Overall, I'm pretty satisfied with what progress I've made. Being used to instant gratification, this progress is much slower than I originally anticipated. But it's progress all the same, and in the right direction. I'm confident that before long I'll be truly prepared to be an excellent leader to the teammates God brings me.

How about you? How are you doing on your goals?

Day 41:

Consistency is the buzzword in my life right now.

My mentors have always told me that consistency is key. Consistency in business, in personal relationships, in anything you want to do. Without consistency, you're just messing around.

I've been "messing around" with fitness since I was 13 and the racehorse metabolism of my childhood was shot by my sugar addiction. We all know people who are like I have been: on again, off again. Slim fast diet, apples diet, cabbage diet, "I'm so tired of dieting!" diet...we've run the gambit. Yet somehow, with all of that dieting, I still ended up carrying around an extra person in fat. Why? Because I wasn't consistent.

Have you ever put different types of gas in your car from one fill-up to the other? Maybe the pump for the one you normally get was broken so you got a different grade, or maybe you were low on gas and couldn't find your usual gas station in time.

My husband hasn't. Since the day he bought his car almost ten years ago, he's put in the exact same grade of gas from the exact same brand - every single time. He chose that grade and brand because he did his research and found out what was going to help that car function at optimal levels. That car runs like a dream! It's had only minimal repairs needed, like replacing the brakes and the o2 censor. I've never had a problem with the transmission, never heard it make weird noises, never had any of the "normal" car problems that you could expect from just about any other car. And that's given me an incredible sense of peace as I drive.

At least, until earlier this year.

You see, we had a roommate for a little while and she was borrowing our car while she lived here. Naturally, she didn't have the same commitment to brand and grade that my husband and I have. After all, we tend to forget the finer care details of the things we borrow from people. She put a different brand of gas, and probably a different grade, into the tank occasionally. When I started driving the car again after she moved out, it was strange. There was an odd sound in the engine, and the gas pedal wasn't nearly as responsive as it had been. The car wasn't driving like a dream anymore, it was driving like a 10-year-old car.

Our bodies are like cars in a few ways.

Just like my husband's Kia Spectra was designed to use regular grade gas and functions best when that gas comes from a certain brand, our bodies were designed to use specific types of fuel. We need that fuel consistently, and if we want optimal performance from our bodies we need to make sure we're not mucking up the fuel supply with things that just aren't good for us.

Just like a car, our bodies need to be put to work. What happens if you let a car sit for too long? It develops problems. The gas separates, the tires and brakes corrode, parts of the engine might even stop functioning. Let a car sit for too long and it's going to take a lot of money and a lot of time to fix the problems it will develop.

Let your body sit for too long and you'll find the same kinds of problems. Your heart weakens, your immune system weakens, your muscles atrophy. It's going to take some serious changes and maybe even some medical intervention to fix those things if you let your body sit around for too long.

Just like a car, there are things our bodies require on a regular basis to help keep us functioning optimally. At certain intervals, my car needs the oil changed, the various fluids replenished, and the tires replaced. My body needs me to make sure my workouts are always a challenge, to supplement my diet with vitamins and minerals that I wouldn't be able to get otherwise, and to make sure that I'm leaving enough time in my day to get the sleep it uses to recharge, repair, and reset for the next day.

It's all about consistency.

I had my husband drive the car to figure out if it needed to be brought to the shop, or if it just needed some personal TLC. He said that as long as we kept up with our habit of using the same gas from the same place, the car should fix itself in a month or so - once all of the old gas was out of the system and it had gotten used to the right gas again. He was right! Just three months after I heard that first disturbing noise, that car is already back to driving like a dream. You wouldn't even believe it was a decade old!

Once I applied consistency to my fitness habits, things started getting a lot better. My body is used to actually having all of the nutrition, sleep, and exercise it needs now, and it's starting to get back to working the way it's supposed to. I'm still not optimal - I've still got that extra person to get rid of - but my system is functioning better than it has in a long time. I'm feeling amazing, physically and emotionally.

And I know that as long as I stay consistent - keep working out every day, keep putting positive into my brain and good fuel into my body - I'm only going to get better and better. My body is already showing the signs of improvement - I can't seem to keep my yoga pants up on my waist, for example!

Where will consistency help in your life? I can guarantee it, if you add consistency to anything great that you're trying to do, you'll be amazed by the results. It may not be easy, but it's definitely worth it!