Adjust to Succeed

We’ve covered the first 2 steps in the process of health. Let’s recap quickly before we get into the third.

The first step is thinking:
You have to know what you want in order to accomplish any goal. You also have to know how to get there before you can get anywhere. It takes thought to get here. You need to take some time to think about your goals.

The second step is doing:
This is pretty self-explanatory. You have to do something to reach your goal. If you do nothing, you will accomplish nothing.
The third step is adjusting:

You have thought about what you wanted to do and how you would do it. You started doing it, so you are well on your way. That is it right? Not so fast. There is more to the process of health than that. What happens when you get a few weeks, months or years down the road? What happens when you get into the routine and you find things to be more challenging?

You have to be able to adjust. When you start on a new habit, things are rarely going to look the same day after day. We all know that life throws us curve balls and we have to be able to adjust in order to stick with our routines.

Many would argue that the hardest part about health is getting started. We’ve discussed the issues with people being able to start doing and the tendency to get stuck in the thinking step. Getting started is a challenge. Doing is a challenge.

There is another challenge that often gets overlooked. I believe that this challenge actually derails more people than just not being able to get started does. Many people have gotten started and even seen some success. Down the road, things change and now its hard to get back on track.

That is where the adjustment step comes in. In order to reach any goal, there is going to be a need for adjustment. If we didn’t need to adjust than everyone would be healthy. Everyone would be reaching every goal that they ever set. Do you know anyone that has never failed? Do you know anyone that has never had to adjust in order to accomplish something?

Adjustment is the key to success. It doesn’t matter how you start, as long as you finish strong. You can start strong, but if you can’t adjust than you will only succeed for so long. If you live in the real world, it may not be a very lengthy time period for you.

Without adjusting, we are simply doing the same thing over and over again. The definition of insanity is doing the same things expecting different results. Jumping into a routine and expecting that we won’t have to adjust is no different. When it comes to living a healthy lifestyle by sticking to goals, the only thing certain thing is uncertainty. If you are confident in your plan and have been doing it for a while, you can find yourself in a much better situation. When you get to a difficult point, you can simply adjust and be back on track.

Adjusting is like the tactics within the overall strategy. A strategy is only as good as your ability to apply and adjust the tactics. General Patton had a quote about this: “Good tactics can save even the worst strategy, but bad tactics can ruin even the best strategy.”

Think of your routine as a strategy. Think of what you do on a day to day basis as tactics. When you think about your routine and start doing these things you also have to take the outside circumstances into account. Just as General Patton had to adjust based on what worked or not. He had to change his approach depending on what his opponents did or didn’t do.

Just as your routine is your own, so are the adjustments. You have to make them based on what is happening now. No matter how well things went last week or last month, if things are different now, you have to adjust. If you don’t, then I guess this is as far as you can go.

I know that you didn’t set out to get halfway or to change a little. In health, we want it all. We all want to feel good every day. We want to be active and eat good foods and see all the benefits from these habits. Not every day is going to be perfect, but if we can stick to the plan, we can keep moving forward. What does it take to stick with the plan? It takes an adjustment. Minor or major, you have to be able to adjust in order to succeed.