Bridge Building

A friend of mine posted a quote on my Facebook page that I thought was good enough to share: "Discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishment." I like that! I'd like to make one slight edit, however, and reword this to say, "Choices are the bridge between goals and accomplishment."

Goals without actions steps are nothing more than wishes, and wishes seldom materialize. I can wish all day, but if all I ever do is wish something would happen, that wish will stay a fanciful dream in my mind - the likelihood that it will become a reality is very low. When we have a goal - when we have a clear picture in our mind and know what we want - then put into place the steps we need to get there, those action steps become the bridge that leads us over the chasm to accomplishment.

When it comes to reaching our weight loss goal, we can't get there in a single step, and we can't get there in one big leap, either. I stood at the edge of the cliff for a long time, looking longingly at a healthy weight in the foggy distance, but I wanted to get there in a step or two. I kept looking for shortcuts or some new, "secret" way to lose weight. I remember talking with a pharmaceutical rep four or five years ago who talked excitedly about a new drug that his company was producing that showed promising weight loss results in early clinical trials. He predicted that this new drug, which was already being used in Europe, would revolutionize the weight loss industry. I wrote the name down and did an internet search on it, then printed off several articles. I read those articles several times and anxiously waited for this new drug to be approved by the FDA, hoping that this would finally be THE answer I was looking for. I wasn't looking to change my behavior or lifestyle - I was looking for a pill that would somehow enable me to lose weight in a single step. The drug was never approved because adverse and life-threatening side-effects began to emerge, and my hopes were once again dashed.

I began building the bridge from my goal to accomplishment when I started on Take Shape for Life/Medifast and committed to doing this one day at a time. It was definitely a "one foot in front of the other" journey, one day and one meal at a time. With God's help, that bridge was finally completed and I crossed the chasm and reached my goal.

I revised my friend's quote because discipline is fleshed out in the choices we make. Some of us are more disciplined by nature than others, but our success isn't dependent on whether or not we view ourselves as disciplined. Our success is dependent on the choices we make on a daily basis, one choice at a time. Choose wisely :-)