Sooooooo…I got called out last night.
God pointed out very clearly that I haven’t been serious about several things in my life.
To be honest, it kind of hurt. I was convinced that I had been, but after several back and forth “No, don’t you remember when I did this…” I realized my arguing with God wasn’t going to get me anywhere. After all, He does know all…
One area He pointed out to me was my fitness goals. I started this 30 day diet/fast on June 18 – I needed some discipline in my life and I was TOO ready to shed a few pounds so I was feeling pretty good going into it – no beef, no pork, no fried foods, no desserts (my ice cream intake was ridiculous – borderline embarrassing so I’ll withhold those details for now lol). I wouldn’t say this diet has been crazy hard, maybe a few moments of frustration since it is cookout/bbq season and I can’t eat everything I want, but all in all, it hasn’t been too bad. I know very well that the weight loss battle is won in the kitchen. Many studies, blogs, fitness gurus and fanatics have harped that weight loss is 80% diet and 20% workout. So I felt like I had the diet portion down, but I’ve seen little headway. I blame it mostly on my lack of motivation for that 20% part.
I actually enjoy working out, but your girl has been pretty lazy lately. I shoot for 3-4 workouts a week and I’ve barely completed one a week! For some reason my energy has been lower than usual so I tend to not take that extra effort to make it out on a jog around the neighborhood or park. To sum it up, I’d say that there are a lot of holes and flaws in my plan:
I have a serious goal, but no serious behavior to achieve that goal.
God made it very clear that although I’ve made up my mind that “this” is what I want to do, I haven’t also changed attitudes and behaviors to match the goal.
Not only have I lacked a matching behavior and attitude in my fitness goal, but also in some other personal goals like marriage. I’m totally serious about wanting to be married someday, but I haven’t been completely serious in all of the preparation period. Things get challenging and I tend to lose some steam at times and thus my motivation train moves a little slower (or not at all). However, marriage is serious and requires some serious commitment; therefore, I shouldn’t take the goal lightly, right?
I think we all know the answer to that question. But my question now is – do we take bad habits used when trying to achieve “smaller” goals into our actions when trying to achieve “bigger” goals?
I ask because I’ve noticed a pattern in my own life. I would say my fitness goal is serious; however, I would probably put it on a lower level than my marriage goal. That’s not to say it’s less important, but my overall goal is to be healthy (no diabetes, no high cholesterol, no heart problems – those run in my family), but right now I’m trying get a clean 6 pack, toned arms and that super cool thigh muscle that sticks out lol – those are more for my own personal bragging rights. Yet I’ve noticed that the same way I seem to be unable to lose these extra pounds and make headway in my weight loss goal is the same way that I’ve made very little headway in my maturity and readiness for marriage.
I’ve made up my mind that I definitely want them, but my actions, behavior and attitudes are not on the same page as my mind.
So first things first – I need to revisit the goal; determine it is still a goal and put parameters in place so that my mind, heart and actions are on the same page – I need every part of myself to be committed to seeing that goal come to fruition.
I’m learning that not only is being committed to a goal making up your mind daily and hourly for the mission at hand, but it is also doing the necessary things to reach that goal, which includes a lot of sacrificing.
I had to ask myself last night –
At what point are your actions actually going to match your words?
It’s not enough to simply profess your goal out loud or on paper (although that step is very important), you have to put the action behind those goals to bring them to life and thus fruition.
So now, I’m done with the games. I’m telling myself –
Either be committed or just forget it!
If you want it bad enough, you’ll put in all the work required to get it.
What point are you at?
Fun Note: This is totally a confession, but I wrote the blog post before this one, with someone else in mind. I got kind of motivated to write it while hearing them making excuses. It’s funny that I was so busy judging them in that instance that I didn’t realize those words of advice were really for me. Oh the irony…
Check out the last blog post here!