For years I wished I was “thin”. I would diet, exercise and never reach my goal, because it was not a real goal. Wishes are what we want, but we do not plan out how we are going to reach them.
I stopped looking at a diet and instead looked at what tasks I needed to do each day to reach my goal. Because I had so much weight to lose I would have lost momentum if I did not have milestones to reach along the way.
Think of it as a ladder, the goal is at the top of the ladder, each rung on the ladder is a milestone. My goal size of a size 10 was at the top and each rung or milestone was a size closer towards it.
To get to a milestone I had lots of tasks to do, changes in my diet and exercise as well as work on how I thought about things.
I also had a physical goal, a dress I had made 20 years before while I was in my 20’s. I never thought I would be able to wear that dress again. It hung on my wardrobe door.
Every milestone was celebrated, but not with food. I would meet up with friends, go to a museum to see an exhibit that I wanted or book an event I would not usually have done.
By reaching a milestone I was one step closer to my goal.
Every few months I would put my goal dress up against me and one day, Christmas eve 2017 I tried it on. It fit! So I wore it to the Christmas eve service at church, most people had not seen me since the summer and did not recognise me.
I glowed not just from losing weight but from reaching my goal.