It's the little things

When big stuff hits me, it can be easy to either shut down or to completely ignore it. It's huge so it's too hard to take in, ya know? Easily overwhelmed and all that fun stuff. It's usually those simple little things that really knock me through a loop.

I was talking with a friend of mine who is getting more focused on her fitness journey (yay! proud of you, M!) and she was telling me about the rewards she picked for consistency and she picked some good ones.

I keep reading that you should set up rewards for yourself as something to work towards, keep you motivated, etc. Putting your rewards on your goal poster makes it more real, and helps you focus, yadda yadda yadda.

I've tried it a few times but ya know what, never has worked for me. In this conversation with M, I figured out why: I've never had to /really/ work for anything, and it really shows in some of the things I've had to learn and work on as an adult - money management, debt reduction, clutter - both body and house, etc. That realization totally floored me.

Growing up an only child, I always joked about being spoiled but not rotten. If I needed or wanted something, I got it. Though my mom would get really frustrated when we'd go shopping because usually I didn't really ever want anything, and forget about clothes shopping... that loathing started early on... and y'all know how I feel about it now! LOL!

Oddly, while I'm not really reward driven, I'm good with delayed gratification. I'm one of those annoying people who can have a fully wrapped Christmas gift in front of me for weeks and never even shake it to guess what's inside, or can have some of my favorite (non perishable) goodies in front of me and pass them by for days. Or, as is the case now, working my tail off for several months for minimal progress in measurements and on the scale... knowing I'll get there. It may be a reason for why my emotional eating issues were semi-easy to deal with. There's a few that are still hanging on, but they're more manageable than not.

The awesome thing that I'm learning is that it's never too late to learn. No, I didn't learn the goal setting lessons as a kid, but you know what, I'm learning them now. I did see my parents set goals and while there were definite setbacks, there were also achievements. My MK director, bless her heart, banged her head against the wall many times trying to get me to 'get it'... Well, it took many years but I finally see the value and the purpose in it, and it's sticking.

The little seeds that had been planted throughout my life are now taking root, and growing like bamboo!