Holding Myself Accountable for My Choices, Letting Pass the Things I Don't Control

The chief task in life is simply this: to identify and separate matters so that I can say clearly to myself which are externals not under my control, and which have to do with the choices I actually control. Where then do I look for good and evil? Not to uncontrollable externals, but within myself to the choices that are my own. - Epictetus

That suggests a chart like this...

Things I Control, Choices	Things I Don't Control (fortunes and misfortunes)
_________________________________	_________________________________
_________________________________	_________________________________
_________________________________	_________________________________
_________________________________	_________________________________
_________________________________	_________________________________

Before reading on, maybe consider your plan right now. How much of it is in your control? How much of it depends on factors out of your control? Take a few minutes and jot down your own chart. Then read on...

Life is not Perfect

Perfect is not required. It just has to be good enough for weight loss.

You win some and you lose some. Nobody goes to Las Vegas expecting to win every roll of the dice, pull of the lever, or deal of the cards. The winners in Las Vegas are the ones who win more often than they lose. They take home the money. The rest of us losers pay for the bright lights, their comped rooms and their free drinks.

We're going to lose some of these battles with our established habits, with our unfriendly environments, or with the daily circumstances. It sucks to lose a battle. It's demotivating, momentum breaking, and irritation-making!

The purpose of this exercise is to be forewarned and prepared. We should start knowing that we WILL fall off the wagon (as it were). We WILL derail the train. But maybe it's more useful not to think of it as a wagon or a train in the first place, where falling or crashing would be a disaster. We're more comparable to being on a roadtrip, where a wrong turn is just a wrong turn. We don't crash the car and light it afire and live there. We just make some corrective turns and keep going. As long as we make more correct turns than incorrect turns, we'll make progress toward our intended destination.

Things I Control, Choices	Things I Don't Control (fortunes and misfortunes)
How many calories I reasonably plan to eat	The difference on the scale today (up, down, or the same)
Whether I pre-plan my food day	Unexpected social events and irresistible temptations, not being hungry, being hungry earlier than expected
Setting aside time, preparing for exercise	Snow, rain, or schedule interruptions; feeling good enough that I do extra exercise
Logging my food as best as I can	I cannot be 100% precise in estimating someone else's prepared food, it might be higher or lower

Focusing on the things we can control, we can bend the odds into our favor. With the odds in our favor, fortune and misfortune will still happen but we will win more often than we will lose.

So consider your own plan to lose weight and get fitter and healthier. What are the choices that you control? What are the factors and outside of your control?

Not getting emotionally upset (or gleeful) by the things we don't control, and understanding that they're just the way that fortune works, makes this experience more enjoyable and endurable.

^{♂55 5'11/179㎝ SW:298℔/135㎏ CW:183℔/83㎏ [3Y AMA], [1Y recap] MyFitnessPal+Walks🚶Hikes+TOPS}

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from loseit - Lose the Fat http://bit.ly/2s6RZxU