TODAY IS THE DAY

One bad day turns into a bad week. That bad week rolls into a bad month. Pretty soon you look back on your life and your physical appearance and think – How did I get here?

We are our choices and habits. It is imperative that we take each moment and choose the next right choice that will bring us closer to our dreams and bolster our inherent values. HOWEVER, the inverse of this is not true UNLESS you make it so.

I always struggled to lose weight and then would gain it back quickly. I would start a new diet plan and be super strict and feel good about it for …. Oh, about 2 days. Then I would give in and eat something super unhealthy – whether it was for convenience or an intense craving in a moment of weakness. Then I would spiral – well I already ruined today so might as well just eat as much as I want today and start new tomorrow. I would tell myself it was ok because tomorrow I would be really strict and start fresh. Except tomorrow would never come because I would repeat this cycle over and over. One bad choice should not equal an entire bad day and one bad day should not equal a bad week of poor eating habits. When you let your mind take control and rationalize your bad choices in the moment because some future “you” will magically start over and gain willpower. You are making a crucial error in your thinking.

Let’s think about things in a new way. What if the new you has a bad moment and that is part of the plan, part of the growth. Your bad day or bad food choice does not ruin your new diet because your new diet is a way of life that allows you to have a bad day. Your new life allows you to celebrate with that birthday cake or have that sugary indulgence and that will not derail you. That bad food choice is actually part of your new diet plan. It is more toxic to berate yourself over a bad choice than to accept that a life worth living has to make allowances for these moments. The distinction that is important to make is that this ONE choice is not the foundation for the person you are becoming. If you allow it to define you then you will become a person that consistently makes bad choices. Tomorrow, you will still have renewed passion toward making one more positive food choice and one less negative one, even if you fell from your diet goal today. Your next best choice will be berries over ice cream EVEN IF the rest of the day was pizza and doughnuts and you are still on track because this is part of your diet plan. As long as you are overall moving in a positive direction, you will get there. One food failure does not make a whole year of terrible food choices unless you allow that to happen.

Likewise, those of us who are working on being a more fulfilled, happier, and joyful version of ourselves will have our occasional downfalls. What is important is waking up every day and committing to a better life. Taking time to cultivate those daily habits that move you toward living a life of integrity; with passion for your goals, love for your family and friends, and embracing an attitude of eudaimonia. There will be days that the daily grind gets in the way of making progress on your goals. Instead of being angry over your lack of discipline or your inability to find your flow to knock things off your to-do list, accept that there will be those non-productive days and give yourself grace. Your daily intention of patience may just go out the window in that one moment when your child interrupts you for the 15th time. Your values may take a dip when you succumb to participation in that juicy gossip or judgment of another. So you had a bad moment. We all do. Do not let that bad moment ruin your day and do not allow that bad day to turn into a bad week. A lifetime of bad weeks is not a life worth living. See things for what they are and know you are still committed to that future version of yourself and you are making progress every day. Your bad choices, your non-productive hours, your momentary lapses do not define you unless you allow them to. Your continued pursuit of excellence and commitment toward making better choices every day is who you are. One day you will wake up and find yourself proud of who you have become and think in a good way, “how did I get here?”.