Today IS the day to change your life

My 29th birthday is this Saturday. I can't quite believe that I am entering the last year of my twenties. Time really seems to go faster every year. In many ways, I feel pretty darn good about where I am in my life. I have a good job, I own a house, I paid off my college loans, I am making steady progress towards my 7 continent marathon goal, and finally this last year I developed a great relationship.

on the slopes and off, we are happy

 But there is one area of my life where I just can't seem to pull it together. I am still not happy with my weight or my relationship with food. I struggled with whether or not to even post about this. It isn't something I like to admit. It seems like it should be such a little thing compared to everything else I have accomplished, yet it seems to dominate an awful lot of my time and emotional energy. 

In her Bean Bytes yesterday, Lindsay had a link to an article "Today is Not the Day to Change Your Life". Basically the gist of it, is that we all keep coming with excuses as to why now is not the time to make a change. We never make the change because there is always something else that takes precedent. The longer we avoid something, the more of a problem it becomes. 

Yep, pretty much. 

But I am on vacation. It is cool to eat a mountain of caramel for breakfast.

 The author then lists out the steps to finally stop avoiding and face the problem:

1. Identify what your avoidance behavior is.  .

2. Write a list of ways the problem could very well worsen with time. 

3.  Write a list of ways that the problem is likely to improve with time.  

4.  Compare the two lists.  

5. Set up Scaffolding (helpful others who will support you)

6. Set smaller daily or weekly goals that make progress on the problem.  

7. Let go of the fallacy that you will be less busy later

"Today is never the best day to make a change in your life. Because tomorrow isn’t either, today will just have to do.  The good news is that nothing feels better than finally being on the other side of a big change. "

I am finally feeling inspired. I am not going to wait until my birthday, I am going to start today. And I am going to use YOU ALL as part of my scaffolding. I am going to set my weekly goal here and then report back at the end of the week. 

My goal this week is 1. To only enjoy a single serving of treats. One of my biggest downfalls is eating multiple servings of dessert at night while watching TV. I want to start small and manageable. Instead of trying to give up my nightly treat, I just want to cut back on how much I eat and savor the smaller portion.

What do you think of this article? Have you been avoiding making difficult changes in your life?