But I Can Be Perfect! Tomorrow.

Any of you who know me well have heard my mantra about setting small, easily-achievable goals. Just a couple of blog posts ago in Set, Point, Match, I was ranting about setting a goal you know you can reach and then hanging out there for a while, getting accustomed to how that new behavior or the new body feels in space before moving on to bigger, more exciting goals. And my last post was about our need for Quick Fix Clutter and how the resulting, inevitable failure can lead down a rabbit hole of obsession and insecurity.

Well, along those lines, Dr. Will Aguila has recently posted a brilliant blog on Huffington Post about The Link Between Obesity and Perfectionism. In reference to himself and others struggling with obesity, he says, "We're not the lazy procrastinating, passive-agressive people that many think we are. We set very high, sometimes unreachable, standards for ourselves... When we find we cannot achieve our goals, we stop trying because we fear failure."

His post is extremely insightful. I see it all the time in myself and my clients. It's the impulse that prompts you to go from pizza at the office party to skipping your workout because... well, you blew it with the pizza, so why bother? You'll just have some ice cream tonight and start fresh tomorrow. Oh yeah, and might as well have some chocolate sauce and a cookie with that since today is blown anyway. The next morning your clothes feel a little too tight, and you know you won't make your weight loss goal for the week. You feel low-energy and depressed, so your diet and workout plans suffer that day too. Rinse and repeat.

Dr. Aguila's point is that perfectionism can drive us all directly down the path of obesity. We must give ourselves a break, set goals we can achieve, and give ourselves a healthy reward if we get there. Small changes are the ones that change lives and bodies permanently. Reaching too far, too fast will likely only lead to crash-and-burn failure and even more unwanted weight gain.

I implore you to give yourself a break. Only then can you see clearly and discover exactly which goals make sense in the long run.