Doing well two weeks in a row would apparently be just a little too much joy for me to handle. I thought I would at least break even today ...
I was wrong.
The thing is, I know why things didn't go my way this week. It wasn't just the Food Roll, the dinner out last weekend, and the fact that I only walked four days instead of six.
No, it actually boils down to a lack of accountability. Ever since returning from Hawaii, I haven't been writing down what I eat. Instead of keeping track of my points on a daily basis, I've been "guesstimating" in my head. After last week's success I thought I was in control, but today's results would indicate otherwise.
This speaks to a deeper issue driving today's results - a phenomenon I call "Succeed and Slacken." I've been afflicted by this behavioral pattern for as long as I can remember, and it goes something like this:
Every time I do well at something, reach a goal or achieve a success, I follow it up with ... nothing. I literally bask in the glow of whatever good thing has happened, and all forward progression comes to a halt. If "resting on your laurels" can be elevated to some kind of pathology, I am most certainly diagnosable.
The book is a good example. I finished the Rough Draft in record time, and was so pleased with myself that I promptly stopped working on it altogether. In similar fashion, I lost 3.2 pounds last week (completely making up for Birthday Week) and then proceeded to slack off to the point where I managed to gain a half a pound.
I'm not being coy when I tell you I have no idea why I do this. My kneejerk (and perhaps unkind) response is that I'm lazy and intermittently self-destructive, but that feels a little too easy.
As usual, I now have two choices. Continue whining, get angry and make things worse ... or remind myself to accept a minor setback for what it is and keep my eyes on the road.
Of course I'll be aiming for the latter, but figuring out what drives that "Succeed and Slacken" pattern might really move things along. Not just with the weight loss ... but with everything.
2 comments:
My problem is that I set enormous goals and then lose track of them because there are so many small steps in-between. I want to be in the future instantly without all the work to get there. The labour overwhelms me and I slow to a crawl, then to a stop.
Yours is an interesting situation. You get to the goal, and then you stop, thinking you are done. Perhaps you lose sight of the end goal too? Maybe you are getting stuck when you succeed at one of the sub-steps. You haven't lost all the weight you want to lose, but you’ve lost some. You haven't published your book (and started another), but you’ve got a first draft done.
What's holding you (us) back? Is it a fear of success? (too easy) Is if a fear of failure? (maybe) Is if a fear of the void at the end of the goal? (what’s next) Is it a fear of just living life in the moment without goals? (now that is really scary)
I don’t know about you, but I would like to stop putting all my energy into attaining something I don’t have now and just do what I love to do and what is good to do -- for no reason except that it is good.
Hey, K, I do the same thing with work deadlines. It's really unfortunate, because it means that once I turn in a project (or draft of a project) I immediately stop working on it for much longer than I should. Then, naturally, I'm way behind when I do start working; I have to bust my ass to turn in a less-than-ideal (and often, less-than-thoroughly-proofread) project by the deadline; then I feel that my burst of hard work means I can reward myself by slacking off again for awhile. It's a terrible cycle, and if you figure out how to break it, do share the secret!
ESM
Post a Comment