Motivational tip from WW book

[Guest guest]

Numbers Game I never would have considered myself a numbers person. If someone starts a conversation about the stock market or finance, I zone out. Numbers, I would say, don't interest me. Though as a child, when someone asked me how old I was, I would say, "Nine and a half." Or it would be cool when a few months past by and I could proudly say, "Nine and three quarters." Or how about the day after you turned twelve, when you could say, "I've started my thirteenth year"? I stopped this nasty habit many moons ago-well at least, twenty and a half years ago. If asked, I would have denied I was a numbers person. But then again, when asked, "How much did you lose so far?" you wold hear me say, "Thirteen and a half pounds, but I still have thirty-six and a half more to

go." This clearly was before we learned Positive Self-Talk. Let's stay with the numbers theme for a minute. My knee-jerk reaction is to say I have no interest in the stock market, because I really don't like to gamble. The thought of losing something I worked so hard for would make me say without hesitation, "No thank you!" if someone asked me to invest in a sure thing. And yet, I have been a gambler. For years, I would gamble every weekend. Not in Atlantic City, but at restaurants, at the family dinner table, even in the car. I would gamble away a week of hard work, saving for my dream (Weight Goal). And then I would go to my meeting, weigh in, and say in an incredulous tone, "Only a half?' I also

gambled as if I were at the track. I might win by a mere hair (a smidgen of weight loss). I wasn't happy, but I wasn't upset enough to change my odds. That is, until a Leader once said to me as I got off the scale three quarters of a pound lighter, "If you lost this weight without really trying, can you imagine what you could accomplish if you really put your mind to it?" What a wake-up call. Someone once asked me how could she get the discipline necessary to do this. I think it's a little like the chicken-and- the-egg dilemma: Do you need to want it so much that you are able to focus on your Winning Outcome and the discipline will follow-or vice versa? When you're saving for a new, car, do you call it discipline when you put money aside for the convertible? When you're saving for

a trip to the Caribbean, do you call it discipline as you put money aside for the beachfront villa? Are you halfhearted about the saving for these tings? No! Because they are thing that you want! Remember: Can you imagine what you could accomplish if you really put your mind to it? Anyone interested in taking on that challenge?