2003-04-11 - 10:22 a.m.
MAINTAINING SUCCESS
Attaining success is easier than maintaining it. Last spring, I had an epiphany. It occurred the moment that I stepped on the scale and the number read the same as it has at the end of my nine-and-a-half month pregnancy with Kat and I suddenly realized that I had had my last baby more than twelve years earlier. So I made a resolution. But I had made resolutions before. Two things made this one different: an article I had read in some woman�s magazine and Bev.
Understanding Bev�s role is easy. Bev had an online diary. I figured if she could do it, maybe I could do it. (Never let it be said that I am impermeable to peer pressure.) That�s a large part of the reason I started this diary. Like Day-Hay, I do not have a particular, single role model but I know when to take inspiration from the better impulses and traits of my friends. I borrowed Bev�s idea of what to do with writing skills, creativity, and an affinity for computers. Then Bev�s online diary began to talk about exercise, about eating right, about goal-setting, and about how viewing life differently and living life differently could open up a life. If Bev could exercise, eat right, and lose weight, maybe I could do it.
The woman�s magazine�s role is a little different. The magazine was one I had purchased while waiting for a plane. Waiting for a plane is the only occasion for my actually purchasing a woman�s magazine (and that generally occurs only when there is no popular science magazine for sale that I have not read). I purchased the magazine because the book that was supposed to take me all the way through the trip home suddenly did not look long enough to last (and it didn�t). The magazine�s role was that it had a plan that looked like I could follow it.
The plan wasn�t highly detailed, although it was specific enough for me to follow. It suggested what to be careful about eating, rather than prescribing specific meals. In this family, none of the meal prescriptions I�ve ever seen have been realistic. I also did not want to give up going out to lunch when I�m working. The going out to lunch is a sanity saver. It talked about a gradual plan, based on amount of exercise in a week, of aerobics. It had a few weight exercises. It could be done in my house or around my neighborhood. (While clubs work for Bev, I still have children in the house and have to fit exercise into odd hours.) I decided to give it a try. Fear of failure kept my plan largely secret.
And it worked! It took approximately four or five months but it worked. Twelve-and-a-half years after my second baby and more than fifteen years after my first, the baby weight was off. I was down to what I weighed when I lived in New York City and walked all over. I had more energy. I discovered I liked clothes. I felt good.
But that was the first battle. That battle had clear goals and landmarks. That battle�s progress was measured in weekly weigh-ins and exercise chart stars. That battle had clear and obvious victories. People noticed that battle and commented on my growing (or, more accurately shrinking) success.
But maintaining success is far more difficult than achieving it. The exercising has largely gone by the wayside and needs to be resurrected. The weight is up only a pound or so and I still reach for dried apricots instead of chocolate MOST of the time but I don�t feel nearly as virtuous about it. No one applauds me keeping the weight off. The reward I feel the most is that my clothes continue to fit. It�s been extremely easy to lose interest and hard to keep myself focused on the goal of maintaining.
But I�ve found new inspiration�I think. Maybe it�s just a need for some weird feeling of control. Maybe it�s the same type of magic thinking that caused me to work and work and work to finish writing a now obsolete computer program for legal practice in the odd belief that I would be rewarded at the end with finding a part-time legal job I could be happy with. (Hey, it worked then. It just might work now.)
But I�m hoping that if I can push myself to plug along and carry on and do what needs to be done to maintain success, maybe the government and the military can too. Maybe, just maybe, we will exercise sense, compassion, sensitivity, and knowledge in Iraq.
But I�d best be prepared to soldier on well personally even if our government doesn�t.
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For a beautifully written piece, see Outfoxed�s entry for today.
LAST YEAR: Sentence First, Verdict Afterwards
Questions, Questions
Still Waiting
The Clutter That Ate the House
I Can See Clearly Now
Influence and Control
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Copyright 2006 by Ellen |
