I’m learning to give myself a break. I’ve been working on getting in better shape for about a week now. Overall, it’s going pretty well. My goals for last week were to: walk at least 10,000 steps a day ( goal met), write everything down in my food diary (about 95% met) stop drinking soda (only had one), and do some kind of strength training twice (didn’t happen) Overall, not too bad. I didn’t do quite as well on my quilting goals. I finished the two customer quilts. Haven’t finished piecing the T-Shirt quilt yet, (I’m close). I didn’t even start on the paperwork.
There was a time when, if I slipped up, even a little, it was enough to derail me entirely. I find sometimes, even when I’m really motivated about a project, it’s hard to find a starting point. Never mind something like paperwork, which I find neither exciting nor motivating. Exercise falls somewhere in the middle for me. But I’m working on becoming more excited about it.
So how do you stay on track and not let life sidetrack you from what you want to accomplish? It can be extremely difficult, especially this time of year with all the holiday happenings. First, I need to remind myself not to give up. Everybody has bad days, I need to remind myself it’s only one day.
In the past, drinking that one soda would have been all the excuse I needed to have another. This time, I reminded myself it was only one back step, and it didn’t mean that I had to go back to my old habits. I’m better about this with quilts, so I’m trying to apply the mindset I have with my quilting problems, to my lifestyle changes. The quilt pictured above took me about 200 hours to make, but SEVEN YEARS to figure out!
The leymone stars are 2 inches square with 16 pieces and 23 “seams” per square. The diamonds are 17/16″ with the seam allowance. I tried probably two dozen different ways to put this quilt together before finding the one that would work. Even then, the first attempt still wasn’t quilt right and I wound up making it and quilting it a second time. (Here’s a detailed shot, note the thimble for reference. If you’re wondering, the name of the quilt is Insanity.)
I believe it was Thomas Edison, who when asked about all of his failed attempts to make a light bulb said, “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work”. This is a great mentality, and I’m trying to emulate it.
The second thing I’m trying to do to help stay on track is setting myself obtainable goals, and rewards for reaching them. I’ve been bad about rewarding myself with food, so now I’m starting to reward myself with things like fabric, time to sew on my own stuff, and maybe even a massage. How big a reward depends on the goal met. Monthly goals get better rewards than weekly, for example. This should help motivate me, but also change my mindset about when and why I eat things. I’m definitely an emotional eater, and I want to try to change this mindset.
Finally, I’m trying to avoid temptation. I know this is easier said than done this time of year, but it is doable. For example, load up on the carrots or celery on the relish plate to help take the edge off your hunger before the big meal, or eat a small healthy snack before going to that Holiday Party. I know it’s a lot easier for me to avoid the temptation of all those goodies, if I’m not starving.
This week my goals are: to start using the 10K training Ap, get those strength training days in, record everything I eat, and remember to cut myself some slack if I don’t get all of my work done. My reward for when I accomplish these goals (notice I said when, not if) will be giving myself permission to work on a project of mine I’ve been wanting to do for a while. Good luck with whatever goals you set for yourself this week, and feel free to share them with me. I would love to hear what you goals you are working towards.
I am impressed! Only one soda – that’s a win from someone who doesn’t like the fizzy of pop! Anyway, just an FYI. I am using a calendar/planner called The Quilters’ planner that you might find useful. It has monthly pages with goals followed by each week/day with goals. I use it to write down the specific things I want to do or accomplish that week and then I can allocate time on whichever day works best to work on that goal. I also track my food intake and exercise. If you want to take a look at it, here’s the link: http://quiltersplanner.com/
Thanks, the soda is one of the hardest things for me. I actually stopped drinking coke over a year ago. That was really tough. Even now, I still have cravings for it. Other types of soda don’t tempt me quite as bad, but I still want them. That calendar is really cool. I like the digital one, as I can easily carry it around with me, but the Quilter’s Planner looked like it had some really neat features.
Kris,
we need a support group
this eating healthier and exercising more thing is really hard
I gave up soda about 2 months ago
I was only drinking one a day
I started watching calories and it was much easier to give up my one soda a day when I realized how many calories were in it
I have a hard time with time management and it has gotten worse since my husband retired
I’m hoping that this site and the quilterontherun Facebook page will be a support group. As more people subscribe/like the pages, hopefully more will start to interact and support each other. I encourage you to keep up the good work giving up soda is really hard. When I gave up coke, I was drinking 5-6 a day. All regular. I did the math too, and that made it easier to stick too it, but it was still hard. I certainly understand time management problems. This is where lists and setting daily/weekly/monthly goals really seems to help me. Please keep up the hard work and feel free to share/comment about your struggles and successes both here and on my Facebook page.
Well said!