Reward yourself now, not later!

I read this blog this morning on one of my favourite websites, www.sparkpeople.com. I agree with everything he or she says 100%!

What the writer expresses is what I tell all my clients. DON'T WAIT TO REWARD YOURSELF FOR YOUR ACCOMPLISHMENTS! No matter how big or small they may be.

Each person has different individual goals whether it's losing weight, being able to do 5 consectutive pushups or 5 proper pull ups. If we keep telling ourselves "when I reach my goal weight," or "when I can do 5 push ups" etc, we lose sight of the journey and stop living in the moment! But more importantly, we don't recognize our hard efforts along the way.

So stop living in the future and live in the now. Enjoy your health and fitness journey and be happy knowing that you are doing the best thing for yourself. Developing good healthy habits and being active!

Enjoy the blog and share!

Stay active and anything is possible!
Donna



I am currently participating in two challenges. Oddly enough, in both challenges one of the questions for the week was something to the effect of "What will you do once you hit your goal weight?"

In both challenges I gave my honest answer - get pictures taken with my boys and a beach vacation. As I read through the other responses I saw things like get a symbolic tattoo, clothes shopping, new jewelry and makeovers. These responses really got me to thinking about how many things I'm planning to do "when I lose weight". Things like: go hiking with my boys, teach them to swim, do a spa day, take a class for fun. The more I thought about this, the more I realized how ridiculous it is to wait. It's like saying "Don't live until you lose the weight." Why can't I take a class now? Or do more physical things with my boys? Even the beach and pictures. What am I waiting for?? Yes. I will look and feel better without this extra weight but it's not stopping me. What is stopping me is the mental stuff. I treat myself like I don't deserve these things until I'm thinner. Or that the weight is stopping me from doing them. The fact is that the only thing stopping me is myself. I should be living each day to the fullest instead of waiting for this flood of happiness, opportunity and capability to wash over me when the weight is off.

I read a fellow Sparker's blog recently about how she was struggling now that the weight was off. She somewhat expected happiness and love to enter her life once she hit her goal weight. And the fact that it didn't happen plus the fact that she didn't have food or weight to comfort/protect her has made hitting her goal weight the hardest part of all. This really hits home as I find myself saying "I can't wait to do this. Or just wait until I do that." So going forward I need to stop waiting and start doing. Happiness isn't a number on the scale, its living life and loving deeply. Whatever baggage I have now, I will have at goal weight if I don't deal with it and let it go.

I do believe in rewarding yourself for hitting your goals. But what I can't get behind is rewarding yourself with life and happiness. We should be striving for this each day and not waiting until goal weight. With this being said, I'm going to start doing all the things I can now and not wait.