75 Days to Positive Change Starts Today!
As of today, October 18th, there are 75 days left in 2010. Let's make those 75 days count toward setting and reaching our goals. Every day or two I will unfold each step of the program in posts that will give you motivation and support to reach those goals. We are STRONGER TOGETHER!
Day One: The Beginning
Before beginning this exciting 75 day program of positive change, we need to talk about the “bricks of change.” This is a simple concept but an extremely critical one.
Imagine building a pyramid out of bricks. You need to lay the first layer brick by brick before “rising” to the next level. The “bricks of change” are basic thoughts, skills, procedures or changes that we want to make sure we have in place as a foundation of change to come later. Each day, we want to put the next brick in place; that is, isolate an important change or principle that will make the future stronger.
The reason for this is a principle we know from decades of experience; too much change at once is not a good thing. Big change should be made as a series of small changes. Too much change, even positive change, causes stress. And it’s hard to make good, lasting change in the shadow of enormous stress. Think about this for a minute. Divorce is generally considered a bad thing and it is normally very stressful. That makes sense. Marriage on the other hand is normally considered a good thing. Think about a few couples you know who are married. How much stress did they go through before and after their weddings? Probably more than the average divorced couple! The same is true with winning a lot of money. Believe it or not the stress can be worse than losing a lot of money.
So for many of you out there, today, yes, you would like to go from being a lazy, non-exercising, over-eating, supplement ignoring person to a perfect eating, round the clock exercising, supplement taking fitness fanatic! However, the price of that dramatic change would be far too high. You are human; you would quit shortly after beginning. The alternative is to make a long series of small, intelligent changes. We want to see an evolution rather than a revolution.
Today’s brick is for you to create a short term 75 day fitness goal for yourself and to create a simple, self monitoring system to insure your goals are met fully, on time.
Everyone needs to set an initial goal. If you are beginning our 75 Day Pure Program with us, stop for a moment and think of an initial goal. Write it down somewhere where you will see it and be able to refer to it every day. We recommend a simple journal. Nothing super elaborate, just an informal journal documenting changes you make, etc.
The goal should be one personal to you. For example, you might want to lose 30 pounds in 75 days. Or you might want to lower your blood pressure and get off your blood pressure meds. Or perhaps you want to shave a minute off your best 5k race time. Whatever your goal, as long as it is reasonable, our 75 day program will help you obtain it and most likely move far beyond it.
Once you have written down your SPECIFIC, detailed 75 day goal we want you to split it into one third and make that your short term 25 day goal. That 25 day goal is the one we are going to focus on attaining immediately!
After you have your goals written in your Journal, you need to understand the importance of actually writing things down. For example, valid, replicated clinical research has shown that when people write down what they eat daily, on average, they lose weight twice as fast!! How powerful is that?
At the start you need to discipline yourself to write down what you eat, the exercise you engaged in that day, any supplements or medicines that you took, etc. Anything and everything you feel is relevant to your goal or individual fitness program.
Day One is that simple. Create your goals and begin writing down your daily behavior.
The next brick of change will be posted within a day or two. Keep checking back!
