Image: the main secrets

                 

What is the main image secret?

In any area of image, we need to know exactly what it is that we want:

• if it is how we look: then, exactly how do we want to look, realistically
• if it is our weight, it could be about wanting to look good in a swimsuit, or be a particular size
• for our health, we might, for example, want to be able to walk, run, bike, swim, etc, a certain distance
• or, we might look messy, and want to look tidier. Or to be more organised. There are many possibilities.

What are we prepared to do to get it?

The next step is: what are we willing to do on a daily or regular basis, to be, have, achieve, our goal? It helps to make a list. Obviously, if we want to get to our goal quite easily, we shall have to start somewhere. Sometimes I think that we forget that:

• there is always a start point
• an achieved point
• that is followed by maintaining the achieved point.

If the start point is A, and the end point is B, what are we prepared to do, what can we actually do in our life, to get to that point B? Whatever it is, and it can be a few, or many, things, these are what we can do, are prepared to do. They are the very things that keep us on our course towards point B. And when we veer off the path, as one does (!), our "things" that we were doing, are what we can return to, to resume our journey to point B.

It doesn't matter what it is we are working towards, this will work for us all.

Doable things help

And we can work out little do-able things, along the way from A to B. For example: 

• looking good in a swimsuit might entail some food changes and some exercise. The exercise could be walking and light weights
• for a food list, what about starting with: drink two litres of water each day; eat slowly & enjoy your food; eat at regular times
• more things can be added as the first suggestions become established in our life
• we could start walking for ten to fifteen minutes a time, adding five minutes each week, until we are walking for the length of time that we have available
• two to three times a week we could do what was in the previous post, starting with maybe eight repetitions of each exercise, adding a few more repetitions each week until we can do two lots of ten  repetitions. The next step would be to add some baked bean cans as weights, or water bottles.

They create sign-posts

A sign post is something that we have managed to achieve to get us to our goal. In this case, it could be, for example, walking twenty minutes, then twenty-five, then thirty. Another sign post could be going down a clothing size. Choose the sign posts that matter to you, that mean something, that tell you that you are getting towards your goal.

One of the secrets of the secret

Make everything do-able, that is truly one of the secrets. One of the biggest, yet seemingly most trivial things that I've ever done to reduce stress and be more organised, is to get my clothes ready the night before. Yes, so trite, but what a difference it has made to my mornings. I swear that it takes less than a minute the night before. But it always took way longer in the mornings. I am a double Libran, and having to make choices like "what to wear?" in the mornings as I headed off to work, etc, it was overwhelming and stressful. At night I am too tired to be so Libran, so I just get it done.

To sum it all up

• today we are looking at knowing exactly what we want to do, in any area
• that we need a realistic start point A, a finish point B
• what to do that is do-able in our life, to get there
• hat would be our sign posts to let us know that we are progressing? 

This simple system has worked for me with many things, from business to gardening to health. Many years ago I went to Weight Watchers. They had a little booklet where you put star stickers each time you achieved a sign post. I didn't understand it at the time, which may have been one of the reasons that I was a serial failure at WW.