My motto was always to keep swinging. Whether I was in a slump or feeling badly or having trouble off the field, the only thing to do was keep swinging. ~ Hank Aaron

Throughout history, sports figures have given us a plethora of motivational quotes to keep trying, not only on the field, but off it as well.

Hank Aaron was considered one of the greatest baseball players of all time, yet according to his quote above, there were times where he felt badly, was in a slump, or he had trouble off the field.

How did he fix it?  The only thing to do was to keep swinging.

When looking back on 2011, there were ups and downs in everyone’s lives – the economy was poor, people were losing their jobs, people were losing their loved ones, you name it, and people were experiencing slumps, feeling badly, or having trouble off the field.

The only thing to do is to keep swinging.

Success to Failure Ratio

In baseball, if you are able to maintain a .350 batting average for a lifetime, you would have your own ticket to the Hall of Fame.

Have you ever stopped to realize that this means that a batter is only successful 35% of the time?

When trying to maintain your weight, do you feel that your success to failure ratio is low?

• Maybe you wanted to get through the holidays without a deviation.
• Or maybe your planned menu that you were so careful to pack was forgotten at home and so you had to improvise.
• Or maybe the scale you packed in your luggage so carefully to be diligent on vacation was lost and there is no way to monitor your progress.

Always remember that those that have been successful with maintenance are just like Hank Aaron – they experience the slumps, the feeling badly, or the trouble off the field – yet they get right back up and keep swinging.

Failures = Greatest Lessons?

In life, we will make many mistakes.  It’s inevitable.

However, these mistakes can be learning opportunities – they can shape us into who we are through trial and error.  By making mistakes, we learn what works and what doesn’t, and then hopefully we stop doing what doesn’t.

The mistakes we make today will become tomorrow’s good choices.

We cherish and remember successes because of the lessons and stories behind them.  When you are on a path to a goal, or dream, there will be bumps along the way, and this will build character, and teach us about perseverance.

When learning about your body, what it needs, what it wants, what makes it run optimally, are you learning from the mistakes you make along the way?

Wasn’t it Albert Einstein that once said “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results”?

If you change course when something isn’t working, you keep swinging.

Praise your Resilience

Being living creatures, we are resilient.  Can you imagine a lioness giving up every time she failed to make a kill?  Her pride would starve to death.

If we give up every time we experienced a slump, feeling badly, or trouble off the field, we would cease to grow and move forward.

You do have the ability to pick up the bat again and again and just swing – chances are you won’t hit it every time you swing, but if you just keep swinging, it will connect.

Just keep swinging.

2012

No matter what your 2011 was like – put it away – learn from the mistakes and move on.  Keep swinging.

A New Year is upon us – we have a chance to make things better than they were the year before.  We have a chance to strive for success in this journey we call life.

Let’s all make 2012 the year we feel driven towards success.

• Success in weight control
• Success in health control
• Success in emotional control
• Success in physical control
• Success in financial control

What will you strive for in 2012?

Give Me 10 Minutes

At the end of every year (for the past 4 years), I have performed this little exercise with my readers.  It’s fun, it’s interactive, and it helps focus on things that you WILL be able to do in 2011, if you just keep swinging.

Set your stop watch for just ten minutes, and in those ten minutes I want you to list all the things you KNOW you will be able to do in 2012 (even if you won’t have a chance to get them done) – things that are weight related that you couldn’t do before, or that were next to impossible to do.  Things that you just didn’t want to do because you were morbidly obese or for that matter, just overweight.

These are the rules:

• Start each statement with “I am so happy and grateful now that”
• You can only spend TEN MINUTES
• Let your mind run wild, be whimsical, be realistic, it doesn’t matter
• Concentrate on things that are weight loss related – things you couldn’t do before that you will be able to do when weight isn’t an issue

And remember, KEEP SWINGING!!!

Sometimes we spend so much time rehashing the past or preparing for the future that we forget to savor the present moment.

Learning how to stay in the present is so important.  Anticipating a future event is exciting, but the most treasured times are when we live fully in the moment.

Often the most memorable experiences are those unplanned moments that catch you OFF GUARD.

There is a saying I use quite often: “This is how memories are made.”

Often, it takes something out of the ordinary to make a solid impression on us. When something occurs that’s different from our day-to-day routine, it fixes itself firmly in our memory.

What is the relationship to Weight Control?

Simply put, sometimes we concentrate so heavily on what the future holds in our weight control adventure that we forget to live in the moment of some special event.  Recently a friend of mine had more than a few events hit her back to back. Each event was special and required her focus, yet she was riddled with concern of what the future would hold with regard to her weight after each event.

Special events occur once in a great while. They should be savored and shared with family and dear friends.  I encouraged my friend to enjoy the moment, regardless of what her weight might be after the occasion.

What do we gain when we fret about what the future and what may or may not occur?  The truth is that we live our lives moment to moment. All we have control over is what is happening RIGHT NOW. As we live each moment, we can only do our best to ensure we live each one fully. When we treasure what is happening in THIS moment, the rest will take care of itself.

After years of anticipating the future, learning to live mindfully, moment to moment can be a challenge. Here are some tips to help you develop the habit of savoring the moment:

Practice meditation – I am not talking about religious fanaticism here. What meditation means to me is a time of quiet reflection on what is happening in the now.  Let’s say you’re in the middle of some unique experience and all of a sudden you begin wondering whether you left the coffee pot on. Or if you locked your front door. Or you start fixating on whether what you ate for lunch is going to cause you to gain a few pounds.  When you let “what if” thoughts run rampant in your mind, you are letting your mind take you out of the experience of the moment.

When you notice your mind hopping around like a monkey, don’t worry. Simply bring your thoughts back to what is happening at the moment. Each time your mind wanders, bring it back gently. Don’t focus on why it wandered in the first place.

Create your own moments – It is really hard NOT to live in the moment when you’re experiencing something exciting. Why not take a walk during sunset? Or get up early so you can enjoy a cup of coffee while you watch the sunrise? Or why not make plans for a night with your dear friends?

Make the excitement about the experience rather than whatever food or drink might be around.

Use your senses – Focus on your environment through your senses when exciting things are happening. What does the moment smell like?  What does your skin feel like?  What sounds are you hearing?  Savor every aspect of your environment. Concentrate on the surroundings of the event rather than what food or drink is being prepared or served.

Keep a journal – Carry a notebook with you to record precious moments you experience. This will help your mind to focus on the moment rather than the memory of the moment.  Journals also help you reflect on your experience later.  Use the journal to record foods that you might have eaten just so that you have data available at your disposal to decide whether something worked for you or not.

The bottom line is this: We live our lives moment to moment. When you allow your mind to worry about what already happened yesterday, or what might transpire tomorrow, you miss out on NOW.

And NOW is where the good stuff of your life is.

Anyone that knows me knows I am an early to bed, early to rise person.  With the recent time change, and it starting to get dark at around 4:30pm, I am usually ready to hit the sack around 6:30-7:30pm, which means I have enough sleep by 2:30-3:30am.

Early Monday morning, around 2:30am I had a light bulb go off during those first waking moments and before I started on my morning pages.  I had been working on a menu as a special bonus for my “Get Your Thin On” program members that would encompass the holiday for a good while and had finally completed it.

The light bulb that went off was why didn’t I make this menu for Turkey Day available to all my readers of The Biz Buzz, as well as all the members of HTA?  I actually laid there in bed, lamenting that there wasn’t enough time, that I missed the boat, that it’s too late, blah blah blah.

In less than 24 hours, I came up with 7 Strategies to get through the fall holiday with success, and with it, a menu designed to help you to remain true to P3 during this upcoming Turkey Day.

Anyone who has seen this menu already is THRILLED with it and most are already changing plans to use some of these recipes in their holiday dining.  It comes complete with the recipes for the day, and a shopping list.  And if you keep to the recommended amounts, you will get through the day with perfect calories, and ratios!

I am super proud to offer this eBook to you today, maybe a little late for T-Day, but more than enough time for the other upcoming holidays!!!

Guilt-Free Holiday:  7 Strategies for Success