10th April 2011

If you were going to die soon and had only one phone call to make, who would you call and what would you say? And why are you waiting? Stephen Levine

What a lovely day it was yesterday, doesn’t the sunshine make you feel better, me and Alfie enjoyed our 90 minute walk before it came out but I took him out a little later for a ten minute walk to post some letters. I enjoyed yesterday because I hadn’t planned to do anything, don’t get me wrong I did things just didn’t plan what they would be, I just went with the flow and surprisingly it was 2pm before I knew it, so then I went and watched a movie, and if you haven’t seen ‘The Blind Side’, it’s brilliant and it made both me and mom cry.

Do you ever feel like you’ve got so much to do, you don’t know where to start, that’s how I’ve felt the last few weeks, so I’m prioritising, I’m starting with the things that I have to do for work, then the ones that’s most important to me, and taking each thing one at a time, and of course the ironing is at the bottom of the list ;D

So yesterday morning was mostly took up with work and also a couple of hours spent looking at menu planning and meal ideas, something that my members have shown a lot of interest in, so I’m trying to put something together, and we also might have a menu planning workshop if anyone’s interested.

When it comes to time we all seem to agree, we don’t have enough of it, for some “time is money”, for other “time is precious”, maybe even both, but time management is a misnomer. How can we manage or be in charge of time – time just exists. The most that we can hope to do is manage ourselves, our attitudes and our behaviours surrounding time. Perhaps a better name for ‘time management’ would be ‘time aware’.

I find making lists helps, lists of what needs to be, and how I plan to do it. It’s the same for anything, if you have a goal that you’d like to achieve and hopefully all of you have one regarding your weight in additional to other goals you may have, the goal doesn’t just happen you have to work towards it. When the goal is large, it can seem difficult to ‘see the wood from the trees’. An action plan will help you to think and see more clearly what you have to do.

It will guide you towards your goal, and help you to monitor progress and to gain a sense of achievement.

Here’s an example of a simple action plan consisting of seven questions.

Q1 What is my current situation? A I am overweight.
Q2 How would I like it to be different? A I would like to be one stone lighter.
Q3 How am I going to achieve this? A By giving up biscuits. I eat a huge amount.
Q4 What or who could help me to achieve this? A Joining Weight Watchers.
Q5 What should I do in order to organise this? A Look on the internet for a local group, go along and join.
Q6 What or who could stand in the way of what I want to achieve? A I have a child and so have biscuits in the house.
Q7 How could I reduce these factors? A I could ask my partner to put the biscuits up on the top shelf so that I could not reach them.

Are you on course to achieve your goal? If not what needs to happen for you to get on course?

Understanding what motivates you will help you achieve your goals; motivation gets us going, energises and moves us towards goals. It is what gets us out of bed on a cold January morning when the day ahead does not exactly fill us with joy. Acknowledge why you want to achieve your goal and that is the foundation of your motivation.

Remember you have to believe to achieve. xx