And… Are You Working Towards It or Against It?
I recently came upon a quote by motivational writer, William Arthur Ward, which I feel is quite relative to this discussion: “The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; the realist adjusts the sails.” I must start it here before I go on. Otherwise, I have to accept that how I will reflect on New Year’s resolutions will truly be misconstrued.
To denote the dictionary, a resolution is “a firm decision to do or not to do something”. The key word here is firm. The definition didn’t suggest weak or temporary nor did it mention any clause should a decision be more challenging than anticipated.
There is nothing wrong with dreaming. Actually, this is what got me to envision myself on certain platforms or pinnacles of life. Oprah Winfrey talked about vision boards many years ago. Having such a collective thought of what you desire creates the imagery of what it is you are going for to attain.
Come around December through February, in the workout facilities, and you may run into much greater traffic of patrons hitting the treadmill or working out with a trainer more than any other months. After many years, it has crossed my mind that losing weight is a top of the list resolution for many. By March, however, I see the gym start to go back to the same amount of people, usually those who have been there before December even arrived. The regulars that put use to their membership knowing they paid for it stay resilient.
Having five kids, I can tell you I know what it is like to gain weight and then, face having to lose it all again. Let’s add tightening up the skin to that and the battle raises the bar to another challenging level.
Why do people give up? My notion is that whether a dreamer or visionary, it takes a planner and a producer to see whatever envisioned actually come to life.
Tell me your dreams and most, if at all, could be conveyed. This is because while some parts are vivid, many areas of the dream were things that didn’t make sense or some mysterious component overlapped yet another part of the dream that left you wondering what the dream was trying to tell you if there was any meaning at all. Sadly, this is how I see those who have the right intention to create a New Year’s resolution and yet, stopped somewhere along their track, never accomplishing what they started to do.
Dreamers, while optimistic at the start, do not create a clear pathway to succeed. I know. I was around a lot of dreamers and while intentions were true, optimism was high, spirits were thus at sparkling levels, as the push came to shove, the usual happened. The dream came to an end.
There are also the visionaries. A visionary goes beyond laying in bed thinking of what they want to achieve; they are up and planning on how to achieve it. There most likely is some drawing board they walk over to for some visual work to be done. They begin to lay out what they envision to take place. There is action involved with something of the matter of words spoken such as, “Now, let’s go and get the things we need to get started.”
With a visionary, there is a definite start to get to the finish because movement towards the goal is evident within the actions. And yet, while the dreamer may not even get to the next stop or milestone, and the visionary actually does, interestingly, the end goal may not be met by either. Why? My belief is that primarily, we think of the course to get to our destiny as a straight path, never like more of its realistic layout, an obstacle course.
If you don’t expect or anticipate having to jump hurdles, crawl under and climb over or run into some heavy mud, the preparation is meek to succeed.
I truly believe the reason why we don’t finish what we start is to hardly any fault of anyone else but of our own doing or lack of.
I recall going to a thrift store (I note this to eliminate any excuse of not affording a dress) to find a new (new to me) fitting black dress that was my pre-pregnancy size while heavily pregnant. I would hang it on its own where it would be the first thing I would see each time I walked into my closet. I kid you not that it worked every time because before I knew it, I was in that dress. I also know that when my commitment wasn’t clear, I struggled much more to lose my weight at the same pace. By my fifth pregnancy, I had recently had our fourth. I forgot that “vision” as my steps were one at a time during that phase in my life.
In having a dress to fit into staring back at me, it pushed me to envision myself inside the dress while working toward making that happen that made it happen. I made plans to start working out just as soon as I could to work toward that goal. Just as soon as my hips felt back in place, I was back to working out. I never tried on the dress until I knew for sure I would easily fit into it, not just squeeze into it. Meeting my goal each time had to be definite.
I am more than certain that while it was clear in my mind what I wanted (the dreamer part wanting to lose weight), my actions were not led by reality without steps to meet my goal. And while the dress helped me to envision what I would look like once I met my goal (the visionary part that created a tangible goal), I still might as well be a dreamer. No dress hanging to stare at me alone was going to get me to lose the weight. The only way I could was to create a plan, commit, and not stop until I was there (the realist part that was going to get the job done). The realist, however, goes even beyond meeting the goal. It understands the reality of having to maintain its success. Otherwise, reality of what you want could very much be short-lived.
Just recently I shared with my husband how proud I was to see that he had returned back to writing up what we call a matrix for each of our youngest children that identified yearly academic, individual, and family goals all the way to our youngest graduating high school before entering college. He had posted these layouts for each of our oldest three children before they were even born.
When things started to really get comfortable, we came to realize that we also got, well… comfortable. We stopped trying to get better or think on how to maintain. Fortunately, we arrived to facing and admitting to our distractions. While we continued to envision our future and all things still continued to move forward, we came to the realization that our pace had at times stopped or slowed down. We basically became derelicts of tomorrow having gotten comfortable of where we presently found ourselves.
This is yet why I believe people who were at the gym from December to February are back at it again the following year. Humans take a toll in life where we start to accept all intentions within our roles as the pessimist, the optimist, and the realist. Like dreamers, resolutions are such where we push away from pessimistically thinking we can’t to optimistically suggesting we can. It is the realist in us that speaks either we are being about our resolution or that we have stopped long ago.
Not everyone wants to get up and adjust the sail. Many of us are just happy to be in a ship, letting the boat take its own course. As I’ve mentioned in past articles, being lost at sea can be a reality if we don’t have a destination. And even if we know our destination, navigating our ship to get there requires real work. Anchoring is yet another scope to our landing. The heavier the anchor, the more planted the ship. However, the heavier the anchor, the more difficult to throw down to hold its place.
If you are wandering at sea, adjust that sail. Get to your destination. Have that anchor ready. Make sure that handle holds.
