Friday, March 26, 2010

When focus turns to tunnel vision...

I am driven by my goals. There is nothing wrong with that. Except when I become so focused on one goal, or more accurately one part of the goal, that the focus completely narrows into tunnel vision.

I have managed to work myself up into a giant knot. I didn't go crazy with extra workouts. I didn't go nuts with food choices. I did everything buy the book, so to speak. I didn't try to force what I know I can't force.

Instead, I have built tomorrow's weigh in, this one week out of the hundreds I've already logged and the lifetime of weigh ins to come, as the most important. The problem isn't that I'm so focused on the goal, I should be. The problem is that I want it to happen SO badly that I have lost sight of perhaps the one single concept that has enabled me to have the success I've had so far: I am not on a diet. This is not a race. This is a change in my lifestyle and habits. THAT is what makes it so different this time. There is no finish line. So why have I put so much pressure on myself to achieve a goal THIS week?

I know that it will happen, whether it's tomorrow or not. My head knows that. My heart knows that. It's known it all week. So why all the pressure?

This goal, though not the final goal, is what will make this real to me. Yeah, I know that already losing the equivalent of an average sized woman should feel real. This is all just further proof of why I so adamantly believe that changing your identity is the hardest part of this whole process, and if your identity issues are a big reason you put on the weight, dealing with them is essential for taking and keeping it off. An area in which I am CLEARLY not an expert.

I don't know what's going to happen tomorrow. All I can do right now is assume it's not going to happen tomorrow. It feels safer to me to not expect it and be pleasantly surprised than to get my hopes up. Even though I've worked hard this week and done everything "right". Even though.

But more importantly, somehow in the next 11 hours (most of which will be spent asleep), I have to convince myself that if it doesn't happen, I have not failed. Failing would be getting too wrapped up and worked up over little more than a pound. ONE POUND out of the 200+ I will have lost by the time I get to goal. ONE POUND over the course of the rest of my life. Failing would be putting all the emphasis on the scale and not the actions of the week. Lest I forget, getting that wrapped up in the number didn't work out so well for the last year.

Lest I forget that I am not now, never have been, and never will be, simply a number.

1 comment:

  1. haiku575 on ww core/sft boardsMarch 28, 2010 at 8:37 AM

    I feel truly blessed to have stopped by your page today after reading a ww thread. You are a healthy young beautiful woman and are motivating me...thank you...for sharing your story and yourself.

    ReplyDelete