The Hardest Thing to Do

On the addiction unit where I work in nursing, I often will share with clients that the hardest thing they will ever do is GET clean; it is much easier to STAY clean one day at a time than it is to GET THERE.

Well, I have been feeling that myself right about now with my quest to lose 50 pounds. It’s HARD! I eat less. Document every little morsel I put in my mouth. Question everything about my eating. I work out regularly and focus more on aerobic activities to burn calories and less on Pilates. And still, I struggle to lose one pound. The scale remains unwilling to move, not very quickly anyway.

I often look at thin people and think how wonderful it is for them that they never have to go through this pain and suffering. They just need to keep doing whatever it is they do now and they’re good.

Although weight is not the only predictor of health and I know that. (In other words, just because someone looks thin does not mean they don’t have health issues.)

The hardest thing to do is to GET to where you are headed because you have to change everything…

• You have to admit that the way you’ve been doing things aren’t working – not to get you to where you want to be anyway. You are a master at the actions and beliefs required for living as you are now producing the results you have today.
• You have to let go of bad habits and all of the things you are accustomed to because what you do now, how you think now will not work to get you to where you want to be. You have to stop doing things the way you’ve always done them.
• You have to learn something new. You have to be willing and open to listening to other people tell you new ways of thinking about and approaching whatever your goal is. (For me, it’s about learning to live at a new, thinner weight, and first, how to GET THERE.) I mean, if you knew how to do it, you’d be doing it. You’d already be there.
• Which means you have to ask for help, research, find new ways of doing whatever it is you are trying to do. Well, most people have a hard time asking for help and admitting that they could be wrong or not have the answer. We want to be RIGHT. And we like to figure things out on our own. We hate to open up and tell others how we feel. I mean, what will people think if they knew this about me? Blah, blah, blah.

Our mind does make it tricky for us to change. In essence, you have to let go of old habits and embrace new ones. Well that’s HARD! And it requires EFFORT. And it takes TIME.

Who wants to work that hard? And really, who likes to wait? We want immediate results and instant gratification!

You have programmed your mind and your body to respond a certain way to the triggers of daily life. It’s how you operate. And now you want to change everything!? Come on! Of course, you’re going to resist.

Change – be it an addiction like drugs, drinking, sex, gambling or food, or wanting to change something else like lose weight when you’ve been heavy for many years, be happy when you’ve been too busy to care for too many years, be in love and romantic when you were only ever focused on completing the to-do list – requires that you leave behind habits of thought and behavior that no longer work for you and create new habits that allow you to create what you want.

And it’s the hardest thing you’ll ever do – until, of course, you want to change something else in your life.

Your partner for success on a journey of change,

Coach Julie, RN ~ Nurturing Your Success