My dad has always been my personal career inspiration. He is humble, hardworking and successful. And although he was super hard working with a high-powered, time consuming career throughout my life, I never questioned his true job was “Dad.” He’s the ultimate family man first with a second career in business.
He has many accolades to celebrate in his career. Most notably, during his 36 year tenure with the Fortune 500, UPS, he successfully launched one of the largest re-branding initiatives in franchising history. Upon retiring, he wrote a book to commemorate his career and continue to inspire future leaders. So today, on this baby blog of mine, I’d like to take my post space & time to shamelessly plug his new book that everyone should read :). Now I’ll take his lessons and do what {I’d like to think} I do best, make them applicable to weight loss & dieting.
One of the quotes from his book is, “what you learn first, you retain the longest.” My dad says that, if at a moment’s notice you are in a critical, high-pressure situation you will start with those things you learned first and remembered the longest. In sports, it’s often called muscle memory. You are what you practice and at a critical moment in the game you instinctively do what you have practiced over and over again.” In business, when my dad took on new roles, he would use this principle to design and develop a 100-day plan. In this plan he scripted his vision, goals and aspirations for his business, his people and himself. By doing this he could make a positive first impression and produce a successful outcome.
That part in the book really struck a chord with me. It reminded me that anything in life, takes more than 1 day. It takes an action plan… a long term action plan. All the things we really want in life, take time and we have to put in work to ensure a successful outcome. What if we made weight loss a 100 day plan? I personally love the idea!
We’re all so used to saying things like, “I need to lose weight by this event, this date, this season…” But usually it’s not realistic. It’s too much weight in too short a time. It’s why we revert TO crash diets. It’s why we never succeed. It’s why we are always so damn frustrated with ourselves and feel like such a failure. If we gave ourselves 100 days, we wouldn’t have to be so extreme.
We can all treat our health the way a business person would treat a corporation. One of the reasons we’re always starting a new diet on Monday is because the one we started last Monday didn’t work. It was too extreme, we weren’t prepared, it wasn’t set up for long term success. If we approach weight loss like business, we can layout a game plan, script in obstacles and let ourselves succeed in due time. And even though 100 days seems like a long time, if we go back and look at where we were 100 days ago…we were probably in the same place.
For us Monday Dieters, if by Wednesday, things aren’t working we usually give up. And instead of just letting go of the parts that didn’t work, we just stop all together. It’s why we’ve all been trying to lose the same 10, 20, 50 pounds for years. Or fluctuating through the seasons with 7 sizes of clothes in our closets.
If your goal is to embark on a health journey today, surround yourself with the realistic tools you need. Write out that 100 day plan. Maybe it won’t even take you 100 days to get there, but give yourself the time. You will see that when you look at the big picture of health & weight loss, it’s always going to be a journey, not a destination. Think about it, it’s liberating!
Thanks for the inspiration, Dad!
