When you want to change your life, you’re trying to affect a different result than what you’ve currently been getting. Do you look at time as a barrier? Do you think, oh, it’s going to take so much time to do this? I’ll never be able to lose this weight. It’s going to take 90 days or 30 days or six months to change. Those thoughts often keep us from actually changing, because we know in the back of our minds that we may fall off the wagon anyway. We’ve failed before. So why would it be any different this time?
The problem with the question is time. We just have to change our focus and the condition of the time. I like to look at change in very, very small segments, because minor changes will actually result in big results. So, let’s look at the concept of 16 hours. All it takes for you to change is 16 hours. Not dwelling on the past, and definitely not even looking at the future. But concentrating on the now. Now is the time to change. Tomorrow is never a given and yesterday is past. But what we have is the here and now. This is the time for us to change.
I look at time in modules of 16 hours. Why 16? Well, for eight hours we sleep – more or less, which leaves us with 16 waking hours. Those are the hours during the day that we’re awake and functioning. Whether we make poor choices or good choices, it will be during those 16 hours.
So, all we have to do is concentrate on today. Concentrate on getting through those 16 hours one day at a time. And you can affect change. You want to lose weight, great! Work on it for 16 hours, don’t worry about one week or two weeks, or 30 days or 90 days, whatever the time period. Just concentrate on what’s in front of you. Can I make good decisions for the next hour? Then can I make good decisions for the next three hours? Can I now duplicate those four hours three more times? I can withstand and go through anything for 16 hours.
If you’re changing what you eat, your activity level, whatever it may be – you can do that for 16 hours. What happens every day is we go to bed, we wake up, we repeat, go to bed, wake up, repeat. If we each take what we want to change one day at a time we begin to build habits. We become accustomed to this new way of life. This new energy that surrounds us that I can do anything for 16 hours. We say to ourselves, I don’t concentrate on the big picture. Everyone says you have to see the big picture. Well, we get disillusioned with the big picture because it’s a fantasy, right?
Well, if you have a 90-day goal, what happens when you get a couple of days into it or even a week, and you start saying I don’t think I can keep this up. I can’t continue to do this for 90 days. You are allowing doubt to creep in. Then failure begins to rear its ugly head. And then you fall off the wagon, you make a couple of bad decisions, some bad choices. And then you justify your failure saying, well, I can’t keep this up indefinitely, because the future is so far away. But when you concentrate on the here and the now you won’t worry about the 90 days. You’ll say, this may be a little uncomfortable, a stretch, but I can do this for 16 hours. That’s all we have to do.
And then that one day of 16 hours, will develop into two days, three days and more. It perpetuates good habits. In 16 hours, you can change your life. In 16 hours, you can learn a new talent. In 16 hours, you can stay focused on your health goals. In 16 hours, you can start to change your financial situation. Once you chop up your big goals into small manageable goals then you start to get those wins. The wins will continually motivate you to continue on with your goals.
16 hours. That is all it takes. Remember, success is never an accident.
