The Baack Paack

This morning I spent several hours composing posts here in the BaackPaack blog and ended up with multiple 3/4 finished posts.   I had a strong title, a solid start, a nice meaty middle… but the ending, the summation where I wrap it all up with a great closing and cycle back to the start, was missing.  On every single post!  In one way that must be a good thing, as I now have several articles just awaiting my finish before I released them out to the wilds of the internet and your eyes for consuming.

Many of us look at our transformation journey this same way.   We start “gang busters” strong, make some changes, some easy, some very hard, and then start making progress.. but along the way, we loose the focus, the drive, the internal fire that says:

YES!  THIS IS WHO I WANT TO BE! 

This loss of focus could be from family pressures, an internal struggle with the “difficulty” of this “new program” that you are undertaking, changes in friends and family, a new job or a host of other changes.   Regardless of the change, we pause, falter or studder on our journey, and instead of taking a moment (or a day) to re-evaluate the situation and address the issue of the hesitation, we shut off the focus.  Even with a history of past successes many of us go right to the negative thoughts of self doubt..

“See, I knew you couldn’t finish this..”
or
“Cindy was right.. I will never change from who I used to be..”

This same internal voice that was SCREAMING for us to stop when we started exercising.
“Stop, this is too much, my face is flush, people are watching, oh.. I am sweating.. oh God.. now people are watching, what is that? A sweat stain on my chest, I am so embarrassed!!  oh God.. now I know people are going to be watching me..  My knee.. I feel something wrong in my knee.. oh God, I have done something wrong now, why else would I be feeling my knee.. look at that guy.. he saw me.. see I told you! STOP! STOP! PEOPLE ARE WATCHING!”

This is the same internal voice that says:
“It is only 2 cookies, that isn’t a big deal, you used to eat a whole sleeve sitting on the couch..”

We cast away all the momentum that we have made and succumb to our older way of thinking, which often leads to episodes of self destruction, either physically through binging behavior or mentally through self doubt.   Regardless of which behavior we engage in, we hit that virtual big red mental STOP button, and succumb to past experiences.

Let me be one of many to tell you, it does not have to be this way.

You CAN complete what you have started.
You CAN reap the benefits of the hard work.
You CAN enjoy your accomplishment and find others who will also rejoice in YOUR accomplishment with you.
If you are facing this situation, or think “I am just sooo tired of all of this“..  take a moment and think about your goals.

• Why did you start this journey?
• What is your plan for when you “finish”? (More on “finishing” in a later post)
• What did you plan to accomplish by undertaking this transformation journey?

If you answered “I don’t know” to any of the questions that I asked you, then you should spent some time thinking about your personal goals. What?  You don’t have any?
Take a minute and write some down.  Tomorrow I will follow up with a post on goals.  How to identify them, how to measure them as well as we can take a few minutes to address some of the goals that you have, and see if those ideas are really goals, or just ideas.

Feel free to post some up in the comments to start off the discussion!