Oooooooh no you don’t! I am not going to make this into a daily blog! No way! However, one of my chickies said to me “I need a ‘Day 1’ post!”, and so a “Day 1” post she will get! She is one of my strongest, most inspiring friends, so if I have a chance to put a hand out to her and help her up off her ass? I’m gonna do it.
Wendy and I in The Big Apple-I love her glowy smile!
I’m not a fan of “I’ll start on Monday”, or at some other point in the future. All that has ever gotten me is a binge in every sort of unhealthy behavior I could cram in before the “starting point”, and by the time I got to the starting point, I felt so awful and guilty and disgusting that I didn’t feel like doing anything good for myself anyway.
I say start NOW.
If you have a bag of M&M’s in your hand right now, it’s cool! You can finish them. Just finish them thoughtfully. Do you really want to finish them right now? Or, might you be able to close up the bag, put it away, and go to bed tonight saying to yourself something like: “yeah! I rocked it! I owned those M&M’s! I can walk away whenever I want to!” And in that tiny, small way, you can go to bed tonight victorious and strong. And there is a bonus! Tomorrow there are already M&M’s waiting for you! I love that! Except that yes, you have to work them off. Baby steps. We’ll discuss that part another day.
Okay, anyway, the point is this: by “start today”, I mean do at least one thing today that you will be proud of tonight. How often do we fall asleep recounting our failures and bad choices? (Is it just me?) Stop it! I’m over that. Shoot, I have five kids ages 17 and under. If they are all alive and fed and sleeping in their beds at night, I should be partying it up for my crazy success! I know there is long list of good and even amazing things you do every day and never think about. Surely there are also habits and behaviors that make you feel badly, but you never really think about them, you just engage in them. So go through the day seeking opportunities to make a choice you will be proud of! It doesn’t matter how small. “I did not eat the leftover chicken nuggets off my kid’s plate!” “I walked to the mail box!” “I stopped eating the M&M’s halfway through the bag!” Because if you are anything like me, it is the accumulation of these small, mindless behaviors that are making you feel defeated. If instead you go to bed reminding yourself how you purposefully made one better choice for yourself, then you are going to bed with a positive thought for yourself. That will change everything. Because the things you tell yourself are the most powerful things you hear.
And that is how I “start today”. When I feel one “bad” day leading into the next, I start looking for small changes I am willing to make. I mindfully make that small change, and I remind myself at the end of the day. If the power to make that small change is in me, maybe, just maybe, the power is in me to make the bigger changes I seek. Maybe tomorrow I will make two small changes, which will make me feel like doing something bigger and bolder…
Sooooo ripping into this bag as soon as this picture is taken!
So eat those M&M’s. Enjoy them! And share them, with yourself, tomorrow.
She Believed She Could So She Did! 