Doing What We Want

"We will never remain free doing what we think we ought to do.  It's a good way to get started, but we won't sustain on that motivation.  It has to be what our heart desires.  In the end, we always do what we want to do."

That quote is from the fourth DVD lesson in Beth Moore's "Breaking Free" Bible study, and it really resonates with me.  Any change we decide to make, including breaking free from the shackles of overeating, will ultimately happen only if that's what our heart truly desires. 

Many of us started on this program, like so many other programs before, because we knew we needed to lose weight.  Perhaps our physician told us to lose weight, and maybe we'd gotten gentle suggestions or even overt pressure from family members and friends.  We knew that's what we needed to do, but the truth is that some of us are on this program right now because we know it's what we "should" do, but getting to a healthy weight isn't our heart's desire.

I say that because some of us allow anything and everything to interfere with staying on plan.  We feel guilty when we go off plan and we get back on (which is a good thing!), vowing to really do it this time.  Then the next thing comes up and we're off plan again.  I'm not discounting all of the things that factor into the decision to go off plan, but I am suggesting that we make the choice to go off plan because, on some level, we're still doing this because we think we should, not because we've determined in our hearts that we're going to do what it takes to get to a healthy weight.

It's really not a matter of being strong.  The people who stay on plan and reach goal aren't stronger or somehow endowed with more willpower than anyone else.  They simply made a decision that what they wanted more than anything else was to get to a healthy weight.  Once they identified this as the desire of their heart, circumstances really didn't matter anymore and they figured out what they needed to do.  In the end, we always do what we want to do.

So what do you want to do today?  Once you know what you want, the choices will be easy.  Figure out what you want, then choose wisely :-)