“It’s unlikely you’re going to feel ready to do what you need to do,” she says. “If you did, you’d have already done it.” If you wait until you feel motivated, you may wait forever. Get started anyway.
Before even the first tiny step is taken, people need to forge a plan to make sure it happens, says Marion Jacobs, a psychologist in private practice in Laguna Beach and adjunct professor emeritus of psychology at UCLA and author of “Take-Charge Living: How to Recast Your Role in Life … in Six Acts.”
Making small changes can be easier and more rewarding if progress is documented, be it keeping track of food and exercise in a notebook or using smartphone apps or computer programs that track calories, nutrition and activity.
So think, and plan. Want to start running? Make sure your clothes are set out before you go to bed. Want to eat more home-cooked meals? Have a grocery list, a menu and a date to go shopping. Goals should be attainable — and pragmatic. “If you’re not a morning person,” Matthews says, “don’t schedule exercise for 6 a.m.”
When you backslide, don’t beat yourself up and use it as an excuse to throw everything away. Think of change as a week-to-week development, Villacorta suggests. “One [indulgent] meal isn’t going to destroy your entire week.”
No people were injured in the two-alarm blaze, which took 35 firefighters about a half-hour to put out. About a dozen homes in the area were left without power for several hours into the evening.