Changing Course

After my post last Thursday about choices getting easier after a few good days, I did a lot of backward sliding this weekend.

This is me backward sliding. It is fun while it lasts.

Friday, I ate out a lot.  After a comedy of errors that involved getting the headlight replaced in my car, getting soaked to the bone and being an hour late to work, I felt I "deserved" another one of those delish bagels from Einstein's at school. I hadn't stopped thinking about it since I got my first one on Wednesday.  Good news, this second was not nearly as good as the first one, so I think I've broken the bagel spell.

Then for no reason at all, I decided to go to the food court at lunch to get Popeye's chicken. I had brought lunch from home, but I was just in the mood for Popeye's.  Crazy that just two days before I was so careful to avoid that fried chicken at lunch.  Then I met up with Cara, one of my favorite high schoolers, for dinner. It was really the only justified meal out of the day.

Look at us in our matching awesome shirts! We were
supposed to be going to a football game, thus the shirts,
but the game got rained out.

After spending Saturday morning inspired to get running again by hard-bodied triathletes, I was plain exhausted. So of course my guard was down when I went grocery shopping (which resulted in Halloween candy and Combos finding their way into my buggy and then I slept and read all afternoon.

Anyway, I think what this two day slide has taught me is that just as I thought on Thursday, little choices add up.  I think giving into that bagel Friday morning set me up to fail the rest of the weekend.  It's like when you're swimming laps and moving in one direction quickly, then you turn around and it's a bit harder to move forward at first because the water is all still moving in the direction you were going before you turned around. You have to fight against it. It's always easier to move in the direction you're going, rather than change course.  And it works both ways. When I'm doing well, it's a bit easier to keep that streak going. When I'm doing poorly, it's much easier to keep moving in that direction rather than changing courses.  What do you think? Was that swimming metaphor too much of a reach?  Does anyone even know what I'm talking about with the water moving in one direction?

So now it's time to change course again and get ready for another week of being successful. Do you need to change course or are you right on track?