A Big Secret for Success in Weight Loss (and Life)
by Charlotte Siems
One hundred pounds gone. Now that it’s been nearly five years since my weight loss journey began, it’s easier to look back with new perspective. With some distance and personal growth, pieces of the puzzle have clicked into place and it's easier to see why I reached my goal.
For instance, at the time it didn’t occur to me how important thoughts and mindset were. But instinctively sensing that discouragement or overwhelm could creep in, I surrounded myself with success stories and support, then stuck to mostly shorter workouts.
You’ve heard me say that consistency was one of the most important aspects of shrinking from size 22W to size 6, and that’s true. But there’s something a bit deeper going on with that. It’s a secret that applied to every individual workout and every bite of food.
In fact, this secret affects everything you want to do well—whether it’s losing weight, homeschooling, mothering, marriage or business. This one principle can determine whether you will succeed or fail.
It’s a simple change in perspective, a truthful way of thinking that can change your life, and it is this:
The little things you do every day matter. Even when it doesn’t look like they matter.
A choice to exercise, even for five minutes. A choice to skip exercise. A choice to eat three cookies….or not.
The trick is that even when you make the right choice, you don’t see the results right away, today. Maybe not even in two weeks. But you'll see the results in two years.
We are so used to instant results in our modern world. Email rather than snail mail, microwave rather than campfire, car rather than covered wagon.
All those daily choices have subtle, tiny effects. By the time you see the results, the choices are ancient history. At the time you made the choices, nobody noticed but you. But everybody will notice the eventual results.
We want to tell ourselves that the little things don’t matter. But before we know it, the days pass and the months fly by and we’re left wondering how we got here.
If you plant tomato seeds, you’ll get a tomato plant. All the rationalizing and excuses in the world won’t change it to a watermelon plant. The law of sowing and reaping is absolutely unchangeable. You can’t escape its consequences, no matter how much you might wish to do so.
The good news is that sowing and reaping works with the good stuff, too. Seeds are tiny little things. Starting small and working up is okay. Fifteen minutes of exercise daily has different results eventually than fifteen minutes of sitting in front of the computer daily. That’s true even if you didn’t notice a single difference today.
More good news is that you do have a choice. You can choose wisely in the little things that matter every single day. Like a snowball rolling downhill, those little choices will eventually gain some momentum and you’ll start to see the difference.
Remember today that the little things matter. This should be encouraging, because you can do little things. Your success is not dependent on a huge, overwhelming undertaking. It’s actually the crop you’ll harvest after planting many, many little seeds.
I'd love to hear what you think. Please leave a comment below!
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Charlotte Siems is a home-maker, home manager, T-Tapp Trainer, teacher, speaker and author. Her story of losing over 100 pounds with T-Tapp has encouraged thousands of people all over the world. She specializes in making home management and T-Tapp "doable" for real people and real life. She is happy to be a wife and mother of twelve children whom she has successfully taught at home for 25 years. |
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