Today I had an epiphany and it was quite life changing. The epiphany occurred when I was simply just at a tailgate with a few friends, drinking and having a good time. Normally I wouldn’t recommend alcohol consumption if you’re trying to figure your life out, but for me I found myself at the most random moment during a football game realizing something that I knew would change my life forever. At first glance, this epiphany doesn’t seem like much of a big deal, but the more I break it down, the easier it can be seen as something incredible and enlightening.
Imagine setting a goal. Not just any goal, but a goal that will change the way you live the rest of your life. For the sake of this article, let’s say we have a 21-year-old female that has struggled to lose weight since she packed on the pounds as a young teen. The poor girl found herself using food as a way to find happiness and escape from all the pain of just anything you have to deal with as a teen going through high school and puberty at the same time.
Now that we have taken a moment to give her a little pity, it’s time to take a minute to understand why it has been so hard for her to reach that goal. When you’re young and want something to a point where you feel like you need it, your patience is very short. With all of these dietary supplements and advertisements for gyms, we are all not only inclined to achieve weight loss goals in quicker period of time, but we know it is possible to do so if we really wanted to get results that quickly so badly. However if something seems too good to be true (like losing 50 pounds in a two month period), it probably is in the long run.
My point in bringing this up is that patience is a critical factor when trying to achieve a long term goal and unfortunately, many of us are just not patient individuals. To finally bring my epiphany into this, it’s essential to realize that it is not about achieving this huge unrealistic goal in such a long period of time, or taking extreme measures to achieve those goals quicker. It’s about achieving those small goals that help you to meet at that huge and seemingly unachievable goal at some point in your future.
Now this girl has been in a loop for years and years and who’s to say the fad dieting and binge eating won’t continue? To put it in perspective, if her goal is to lose 50 pounds, initially it seems like a lot when you look at it for what it is. She has to wait anywhere from six to eight months to achieve a goal that will make her feel proud to be alive and be who she is? Forget about it. And that is her issue, she keeps looking at this giant and unrealistic goal that is going to take months and months to achieve. However, when you break it down and look at it to where it’s 10 pounds a month, it suddenly seems much easier.
This epiphany helped me see a perspective that never really ever occurred to me at any point in life. I don’t have to set this substantial goal that seems ludicrous and stressful just to think of. It is much easier to allow yourself to not be patient and set goals that you will immediately achieve in a shorter amount of time. Waking up every day and saying “I have 29 days left to achieve this goal” is much more forgiving than saying “I have 8 months to achieve this goal.”
Moral of the story is you shouldn’t be so harsh on yourself to achieve these unrealistic and untimely goals. Setting smaller, achievable goals in shorter amounts of time will make the goal more realistic and achievable. You shouldn’t have to wait this immense amount of time to give yourself credit or feel good about an achievement. The more small goals you set, the more likely it is for you to achieve those goals consistently and you reward yourself by achieving something successfully more often.