i hope it's all right for me to post this here. i got it from this month's lanny bassham newsletter from his mental management program. the newsletter is sent free so i'm assuming he won't mind if i share.
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" ATTAINMENT – More that just Winning
“95% of all winning is accomplished by only 5%” of the participants is true. There are very few winners. In a class at school there are only a few As and only one valedictorian. There can be but one National Champion, Miss America or Super Bowl winner each year. There can be only one Olympic Gold Medalist in four years and frequently the dominating performer wins more than once. Let’s face it; your chances of winning at anything in your life are very small.
But, does this mean that 95% of those who compete are losers? “Oh, that is too harsh a word!” you say. No one is a loser! We don’t use that word! OK, what word would you prefer? Non-winner just doesn’t seem to do it for me. How about “one of the best”? Is that just above “better than average”? If you are satisfied with just being good then why compete? Only one can accomplish being first. That is the definition of first. Winning is a unique position.
OK, how about this. We place too much emphasis on winning! Winning is not the important thing at all; just competing is enough. This creates a much bigger problem than it solves. Life is a competition and winning does matter. Try to tell the company that lost out on the contract and went under that it doesn’t matter if you win or not. Try to tell the side that lost the war that winning doesn’t matter. Winning matters! No one remembers who almost won the World Series, the first runner-up to Miss America or who almost won the presidential election except the runner-up and they can never forget. The Silver Medalist in the Olympics will remember that the national anthem is played for the Gold Medalist and not for him for the rest of his life. An Olympic Silver Medal is the best you can do in the world of sport and not win. Winning matters!
So, what can we say about those that do not win? Are they just wasting their time? Do they gain nothing from the experience? Is the valedictorian the only one that benefits from going to school? Do we learn nothing from the struggle up the mountain? Do you have to win to benefit from running the race? No! The opportunity to benefit is available to everyone from the winner on down. The problem seems to be that in our culture we seem to focus more on the accomplishment of where one finishes in a task than the benefit of performing the task. We focus on the record of our favorite football team not on the progression of skills learned by the players. One team can improve more than their opponent but still lose the game to them. It is easy to measure a score, talk about a score and write about a score. It is much more difficult to measure personal growth, skill acquisition and attitude improvement.
Winning is accomplishment. Accomplishment is easy to measure. It is A, B, C, D and F. It is Gold Silver and Bronze, First, Second and Third. It is how much money you earn not what you are worth. The winner of the Olympic Games is not better than anyone because he won. He just outscored his opponents. I cannot even say that. I won my gold medal when my score and the score of the Silver Medalist were the same. I was awarded the medal on a tie- breaking rule.
A winner is not better. He just performed better on that day. That’s all! Accomplishment is about what he did. Attainment is also about who he became in the process.
By Lanny Bassham"
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think of all we're accomplishing while we're on this weightloss journey. sure some of us (especially me!) take some steps backwards--but look what we're learning. i have to tell you that even though i have my binges every now and then--they are further apart and never as severe as they used to be. good food choices are much more automatic now. i have learned to eat (and love) foods i would never have believed possible 10 years ago.
will i ever get to goal? i guess time will tell. like i said in an earlier post--even though i weigh around 194, i have learned to love myself and have acquired a sort of "at peace" with who i am. now that's an attainment for sure!
i would love to get to goal. i would love to wear size 8's, but i'm not going to beat myself up. i am going to enjoy the journey and if i get to my destination so be it. if i don't--so be that, too. life will go on and life will still be good.
we can all be winners at weightloss whether we get to goal or not. we have our good performance and our not so good performance days. the important thing is we keep working and we keep having fun on this journey.
(now how's that for a soapbox rendition?)
I know that there is a good ending to all of this suffering that you are going through.
