Half the battle

Day 37 of 75 Hard has come and gone. I am a little less than halfway through. I have persevered through another road trip, turned down cake at my nephew’s birthday party (even though I heard it was very good cake from my daughter, who happily ate my piece), survived a swarm of mosquitoes even though I’m still itchy from the fray, and even–gasp!–worked out all alone for two of the past 16 days. My parents’ neighbor probably thinks I’m extremely weird, as I huffed and puffed my way through a strength workout in the driveway (with said mosquitoes) at 5 am. I’m sure many people in my life find my schedule weird…including my kids and husband. 😆

“When you have a great and difficult task, something perhaps almost impossible, if you only work a little at a time, every day a little, suddenly the work will finish itself.”

Karen Blixen

Deciding how to prepare myself mentally for the wall I know is coming in a week or two is a battle in and of itself. Around Day 50, I just want the experience to be over. My self-talk revolves around, ‘hey you’ve done 50 days, that is amazing!’ and ‘why would you want to keep going? What do you have to prove?’

One half the battle … Keep your promises

I don’t have to prove anything to anyone, but I do have to keep promises to myself. For the longest time, I would tell myself I would do something, whether it be pursuing a goal or vision, finally buckling down and focusing on health, or even something as simple as keeping a home routine so my house was clean and comfortable most of the time. I planned, prepped, visualized, but didn’t follow through and keep my promise. Excuses became my self-talk.

Every day I complete these tasks is one more day I keep my promise to myself to finish strong. That means more to me than anything, and is why I started this program to begin with.

Another half of the battle … Decide

Decide. One simple word with a lot of meaning: To choose something, especially after thinking carefully about several possibilities. Once you decide your course of action, you don’t have to think about it anymore. You don’t have to have an internal debate over how much water you should drink, or how much protein you should eat, or whether you should have a glass of wine on Thursday night or save it for the weekend. This program makes those decisions easy–just follow the rules–but what about when the program is over? Make your own rules and decide to stick to them. And keep your promises. Don’t talk yourself into a big piece of chocolate cake when you promised yourself you would not go over X grams of sugar per day.

As for me, I needed this reminder as much as anyone else. I am not going to second guess or question my decision to complete this program. I am just going to do it.