Sometimes the small stuff is important!

 I just love reaching goals... no matter how small they are. In fact, I would strongly recommend setting small goals that are fairly easily attainable. You'll be surprised at how many of these goals you will meet just in the course of your daily life. If you set some smaller, bite-sized goals, they will come zipping at you at a pretty steady pace and before you know it, without even realizing it, your bigger goals will just fall into place.

As you all know, last week, I met my own goal of running 7 miles in less than 80 minutes. I am happy to announce that yet another goal has come to pass this week - that of losing 80 pounds. Yes, I still have a ways to go, but a few years ago I would have never dreamed of being able to lose even this much weight. Fortunately, I have changed my way of thinking. I scaled back my goals so I wasn't thinking of losing 80 lbs as the main objective. In fact, my first objectives were pretty humble... to be able to walk 20 minutes without my legs feeling like they are going to fall off and to make sure that my weight showed downward progression more days than it showed upward progression.

And all along I have continued to set small goals in both my running and my weight loss. Those small goals keep coming fast enough that they really motivate me and inspire me to go further. It's strange to me now, but motivational speakers, weight loss experts and fitness trainers all say this like it's some kind of mantra, yet for some reason it never really sunk in. In the past, for every pound I lost, I looked at it as 1 lb out of 80 instead of just looking at that single pound as an achievement in and of itself, worthy of celebrating (don't go crazy, it's not a shopping spree/Caribbean vacation worthy celebration - no, usually it just consists in sharing my news with someone and basking in the achievement for just a few minutes). Now, I prefer to look at the small goals achieved and (almost) completely ignore the big goals. What's the old saying? Mind the small stuff and the big stuff will take care of itself... I don't know why it's taken me so long to really understand this... but I have to say I'm thankful that I have.

Today's Run
7.67 Miles
90:05
5.1 mph
11:45 Pace