How to Stay Focused On Your Goals – Even When There’s No Results!
Woo Hoo!
I just finished day 80 of the 80 Day Obsession Workout. It is a program created by BeachBody — the same people who created P90X, and consists of 80 different workouts in 3 phases that you do 6 days a week.
My goal was to release weight, have more energy and embark on a new fitness habit.
I’d love to tell you that I have a six-pack now.
That I’m in the best shape of my life.
That I’ve lost 20 pounds and have only 10 more to go.
But none of those things are true.
Here’s what is.
I’ve released about 4-5 pounds on the scale (depending on the day).
I like the body I see in the mirror so much more, though I don’t have any body measurements to use because I didn’t take them.
I know how to get myself to work out each morning, whether I want to or not.
I’ll be honest. I wanted more measurable success. I wanted more numeric results. But what I’m learning through this experience is something way more profound than the numbers.
I am learning how to stay focused on my goals, even when it seems like I am getting no results.
Every workout from day 1 to day 42 was painful. If it wasn’t my lower back, it was my shins or knees that made it so hard to finish the workout. I’d stop the video, stretch out the offending part and keep going (don’t worry, I knew the difference between keep-going-pain and stop-pain).
I kept going — because, despite these issues, I knew these workouts were teaching me something deeper — and I added in more stretching and massages. This is how to stay focused on your goals: problem solving in the moment.
Day 42 was the first workout I did with no pain. It was a day of celebration.
Then there was the soreness. I’d wake up in the middle of the night with sore arms and legs that was leading to way too much Advil. I finally found the answer: pre and post-workout powder from Garden of Life.
The powders made the soreness totally bearable. Another day of celebration!
Another secret on how to stay focused on your goals: never stop searching for ways to make the process easier and more doable.
Then around day 45, I fell on both of my knees on a wet floor at a hotel during a client event. Both of my knees were badly bruised and I couldn’t put pressure on them for a few weeks. Since many of the exercises required being on all 4’s, I did my best to modify.
I kept going. I remember when my niece saw me in a tripod posture, trying to do a random exercise without hurting my knees, and gently asked, “What exactly are you doing?” The fact that I was working out at all was a success, even if I looked like a clown doing it. I took what I could get.
Noticing your successes, no matter how small, is a crucial aspect of how to stay focused on your goals — even if there’s not external results.
The scale didn’t move a pound until around day 55. I was angry. It seemed like a lot of work for no outcome. No one mentioned that I looked different. No extra compliments. Even from my husband. It was like I was secretly doing one of the hardest things I’d ever done and no one even knew about it!
At that point I changed my diet even more (mind you, I was eating healthy and following a plan). I started doing intermittent fasting and drinking lots of bone broth.
Celebration: the pounds started to come off — slowly.
By day 60, I started to realize something important: I was doing this for myself.
The scale wasn’t going to make it better.
The compliments weren’t coming.
My body, though changing, still was not anywhere close to looking fit.
Clothes, though fitting better, weren’t that loose.
Every external indicator of success was taking its own sweet damn time.
It was the first time in years that I had to keep going on faith, surrender and commitment. And I was constantly problem solving to be able to keep going.
I had to trust that the results would happen. I had to stop feeling sorry for myself and comparing myself to all of the #down30pounds80dayobsession tags on FB and Instagram.
This is the definition of unconditional commitment: you do the action even when there are no external results. You just keep going. And you problem solve along the way.
I remember the first time I experienced this: it was the first year in my business. It was like every action I tried brought back meager results or actually backfired. There were a million moments back then when I thought about quitting.
In fact the only thing that kept me from quitting was the fact that my experience at L’Oreal Paris had killed any desire for me to go back and do corporate work. I worked and worked those first 2 years. And eventually I started to see the results.
If I had quit then, I wouldn’t have the million dollar business that I have today.
Everyday we get the gift of learning how to unconditionally commit to what we want. And we have the opportunity to problem solve when we come up against walls.
We can also quit when we don’t see the changes right away, and give up when it doesn’t seem to be working.
I would love to tell you that making the better choice is easy. It’s not. But what I can tell you is that it does get easier to make the better choice after you’ve seen success (even if that success takes some time).
We often get confused, and think that leadership is about success, being able to say, “I did this or that.” But I think the energy of leadership, the stuff that makes people look up and think, “I want to be like her,” is built on unconditional commitment and non-stop problem solving. These are the traits that get you to success. They create an attractive, magnetic-like energy to those around you.
It’s not always pretty, but in my experience, it’s totally worth it.
Photo: flickr, Marco Verch
