Chugga Chugga... Momentum?

It's Monday again! Er... Actually, It's Tuesday now.

I was actually going to write about adjustments, adaptation, accountability and progress. Actually, I still am. However, before I get there, let me tell you a little about how this week started for me - the excitement, the drama and the happy endings... all of it... just because.

As fluid as time is, there is usually a cause and effect type of phenomena when it comes to the way we progress through life. What we did last week often has an effect on the way we do things this week. The only exception is death, really. Even abrupt life changes that force us to drastically change the way we live are affected in some way by our recent histories and/or past experiences. That said, even in the effort to bring in the New Year, clean the slate and start fresh will have its debris from the recent past and any unfinished business to clear in the beginning at the least.

That said, I was having a helluva time trying to put my words onto the screen. I had a flurry of topics that I wanted to put out there all fighting for their place in the world simultaneously buzzing about the plans for the week and the mountain of a to-do list I had created for myself this year. Sunday night came and I found myself kicking myself in the butt for committing myself to a weekly posting (while still knowing that it was all a valuable part of my journey). I had kept putting off the writing til the 11th hour and I knew that something had to be started whether I like it or not. So I begrudgingly started... 

...and then we had a family emergency.

As I was in the middle of writing the beginnings of this week's blogpost while waiting for the laundry to dry, a call came in from my aunt (simultaneously with a text from my older cousin): Grandpa took what was supposed to be a 10 to 15-minute trip to Target at 6:00 pm and had not yet returned. It was already 10:30 pm at night. A welling flow of worry and fear started to take over, as my anxious thoughts about work and Grandpa and my car in the shop and the children and wars and world peace... okay... so just about everything was exploding in chaos in my mind.

Grandpa is typically a fairly capable man for his age. Kind-hearted, hard-working and nurturing, he's the type of guy a scammer would pick out, and Grandpa, without his cash on him, would drive the scammer to the ATM and withdraw money for the guy and his "church donations" (true story). Aside from his big heart, his physical heart is the other weakness he has. In the past year, he had been rushed to the hospital for passing out stone-cold in front of a Rite-Aid due to a pacemaker failure. Now you know exactly how worried we were on a cold, wintery night when 4 1/2 hours after he had left, he was nowhere to be found.

My oldest uncle and aunt in one car, my younger aunt in another, our family searched the city hoping to catch a glimpse of the car he had borrowed to make his Target run. My youngest uncle, the owner of the vehicle Grandpa had driven, filed a police report and was waiting for police to dispatch someone to the house to take down the report and open the case. I had decided to throw out a PSA on Facebook, in the case any of my friends and network might be able to help bring him home. My youngest cousin took it upon herself to drive around in search of Grandpa, along with the other two family cars that were on the search. My eldest cousin had called to all the hospitals in the surrounding area and still nothing. By 11:30 pm, there was still no sign of him, nor any success in getting the police to the house (though CHP and VPD had assured us they would keep their eyes out for his vehicle).

By close to midnight, we were all fearing the worst and praying hard for him to be safe. As I was texting w/ my youngest cousin, she was driving in the dark and foggy isolated area near a local park, when she sent the message, "I FOUND HIM!" Half-fearful that she'd find someone else driving the vehicle an half-hopeful we eagerly awaited the news.

It was him. Grandpa was safe. A little lost and citing the darkness and the fog as his reasons for being lost, but safe. 

By the time we had settled down enough, Monday had come and my mind not quite ready to turn in. I knew that I'd be tired by morning if I didn't sleep soon, but I still had everything that I needed to do ahead of me and though I was not feeling (at that moment in time) the momentum I wished I had to push me forward, I forged ahead anyway.

The days that go by are not perfect. The goals we set for ourselves are not always so easily achieved. We will work at it, chiseling away at the stone as Michelangelo had worked at La Pieta. Things happen, we end up having to take the steps I mentioned in my last blogpost, but the key to it all is adaptability, accountability and openness. Being open to the idea that every step is not perfect, and in order to stay on track we must be able to adapt through whatever may come. We have to hold ourselves accountable, even if there is no one in front of us to cheer us on, and even when we don't feel the push we want to move us forward. In fact, to adapt is in itself an aim, no matter how you look at it. Growth and positive change is adaptation at its best. 

The road to progress is paved by openness, adaptation and accountability.

I could have told myself that no matter how much I need to settle down and sleep, considering that I have a client first thing in the morning and a mountain of a to-do list, I made a commitment and am keeping myself accountable to that commitment. I will write as I had before, allowing the words to spew from my heart and mind onto the screen and let it be done on the date I had set for it to be done. Additionally, I feel that this type of self-discipline and motivation is exactly what I need at this point in my life to keep the momentum going; not just the momentum that keeps my writing going, but the momentum of self-motivation that translates to all the other aspects of my personal and professional life, as well.

Take fitness goals, for instance:

You make a goal to lose weight/gain muscle/be all you can be/just be healthy. You move forward and maybe you're that group that sees progress right away, maybe you're not. Depending on where you started and what you're doing, your progress in 4 weeks may not resemble another person's progress at 4 weeks... or even 12 weeks. While it is completely and absolutely possible to make some amazing changes in a 12-week period, if you're one of the people who doesn't immediately see that progress, should you stop striving for your end goal? Hell no. Just cause you don't look like/are as strong as the person next to you or still have a crapload of health issues, doesn't mean you're not eventually going to get there, get close or maybe even supercede your goals. You shouldn't even be comparing yourself to anyone else... not even your past self (in the case of those of you who went through enough life changes that you no longer recognize who you are anymore). Your path before you has brought you to where you are now, and making a new path will definitely take some patience and work.

This is best accomplished in small bites.

Enter the immediate (daily) goals, short-term (phasic) goals and long-term (BIG/milestone-type) goals, and how they all fit together. Your Monday through Sunday, Weekly/Two-Week/Three-Week, and program completion objectives. There are a bunch of little bits adding up together to make a big bit. Whether it's starting small on the weights or focusing on eliminating/adding nutritional habits to your daily routine, you're starting with the small bits to get the job done at first. As you progress, you'll certainly add load, eliminate/add more nutritional habits, and so forth until you finally reach your ultimate goal. The important thing about all this is remembering what each phase of your program is supposed to look like, and identifying stages appropriately to help you keep perspective of that ultimate end goal.

When life throws you them lemons, maybe you're phase will get extended, maybe you'll fall back a little, but that doesn't mean you stop progressing or moving forward. Find the power within you to make the baby steps - take it back to the day-by-day before you get daunted by the mountain of the week ahead. Keep perspective of your end goal and much like Friday comes sooner or later, you'll get to it.