Focus on the Present

A good friend just reminded me of a wise principle that I had forgotten: "You can only worry about today." So true. And especially true if you have a huge goal in front of you, like losing a sizable amount of weight or changing your lifestyle from unhealthy to healthy. The best way to get there is one day at a time.

I guess I forget this principle because of where I am today. I did the hard work to achieve my goal of losing 25 lbs. and am now in maintenance mode. But not everyone reading this blog is where I am. You may have 10, 20, 50 or more lbs. to lose, and that weight loss is still ahead of you. It may seem like an insurmountable obstacle: to make healthy choices time and again, day after day, month after month, probably for the rest of your life. But if you look at it that way, you're setting yourself up for failure.

Try this: tell yourself that the only choice that matters is your next one, whether that's your next meal choice, the decision to have a second helping or not, to eat that slab of cheesecake or not, to work out or sleep in. You only have to concentrate on that choice, not the one after that or the one you may have to make next week. Why do this? Because to focus on something down the road (or worse, to worry about it) is to steal joy from your current state and not be fully present. And when you're not fully present, you risk making bad choices right now. So, no matter what the issue is, just focus on the here and now. This is sound advice, and I'm going to try to apply it to other areas of my life.