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Day 11 in which I am shocked by the extent to which I lie to myself



Ok, so there’s this whole big scary question of, “Am I going to do what I’ve committed to do?”.

That’s true in my #100DaysofHealth project. It’s true in business. It’s true in relationships. I stress about making plans or promises BECAUSE I know I’m then going to have to find a way to fulfill them.

But then there’s this whole OTHER question I’ve been asking myself lately: “Am I actually doing what I think I’m doing?”

No, I’m not crazy (I don’t think), and I’m not Mr. ShortTerm Memory (though how would I know?). I’ve just noticed lately that when I have strong intentions, I sometimes THINK I’m following them better than I am.

To wit: a month or so ago, I decided that in my regular business, I was going to delegate every single task I had on my plate that didn’t either move the needle in my business (that is, put it permanently into a better position to make money, something like creating and filling a new job position or creating and implementing a new marketing campaign), or create a system that would make some part of the business run more easily.

Last week, I told someone that I’d been doing this for a month, and then it dawned on me that...I HAVEN’T. 

I’ve MEANT TO; every day I get up with the INTENTION OF only working on those things, and when I said it I really believed that I was…but the reality is, I did it the first week and haven’t ACTUALLY ACCOMPLISHED IT since. Wow. Ouch.

So that led me to think about this other thing, my #1 priority, my health, and whether I was REALLY doing the key things that I’ve decided I MUST do every day, which is eat real food (yes), not much (don’t actually know, I THINK so), mostly plants (sort of), and work out 1 hour a day 6 days a week (well, of course...no wait, bootcamp only lasted 45 minutes on Wednesday, and I didn’t work out Friday because I was traveling or Saturday because I’m speaking all day, so…sorta). But I did meditate for 20 minutes every day. Uh, most days. Uh, less than ½ the days.

Seriously, when I think I’m doing really well, it’s not me lying to myself so much as me actually believing something that’s false. Had I not noticed this—and I suspect it goes on all the time, in every area of my life, and has been forever—I would have gotten to the end of this week and wondered why I didn’t lose any weight, didn’t feel any more focused, didn’t get the important stuff at work done.

I wonder how often it’s the case that we think that something—a diet, an exercise regime, a home study system, a business—doesn’t work because, in reality, we THINK we’re working it, but we’re not?? Horrifying thought, isn’t it?

I think I know why *I* do it: my day-to-day life is made up not of a regimented or planned schedule, of a series of activities and decisions about what to do next, and my mind is often on the thing that has to happen 3 things from now. So when I grab a piece of turkey on my way out the door, it seems like an adequate decision (it wasn’t a hot dog, and it was only 2 ounces or so, and I really was hungry, no just noshing) and therefore doesn’t stick out as a “failure”, but it’s not a decision that I can recount to anyone the next day when I’m saying, “Yeah I eat mostly plants” because it was a distracted, spur-of-the-moment thing.

I suspect that the solution for this whole problem, in business and in health and in relationships, is more detailed PLANNING. Had I thought the night before about the fact that I had an office meeting at lunch time, I could have made a jar salad instead of grabbing the first not-unhealthy thing I could find in the refrigerator. Had I planned out my working days in advance, I could have assigned all those last-minute non-needle-moving tasks ahead of time instead of realizing they needed to be done only AFTER the staff left for the day, leaving me as the only option for completing them.

I’m going to try that, and report back on…day 20. Let me make a note of that, and put it in my calendar now.

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