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Sunday, June 3, 2007

The Backward Approach

I'm reading this great book by Laura Berman Fortgang, "Now What? 90 Days to a New Life Direction." Yes, I want to change a lot more than the sorry state of my weight. But this one exercise really is great! You create a backward timeline, and basically back into what you need to do today to get where you want to be a year from now.

First, you write down what your life is like a year (or two years, or whatever) from now, when everything is all changed just the way you want it. You envision it as real and completely happening.

Then you write down what your life is like six months along, half-way to your goal. How much have you changed? What are you doing regularly? What new things have happened?

Then you write down what's happening three months into the whole deal, one quarter of the way. Have you come up with new ideas, new approaches? Are you meeting helpers and friends along the way?

It's amazing. Suddenly this giant project becomes much more manageable. It makes me feel hopeful.

And it's probably more practical than thinking, "When I win the lottery, I'm going to do X and Y," because you're not wasting time waiting for that event to transpire. You find a way to put the plans in action now.

So next, I'll post what my plans are, a year, then 6 months, and then three months from now.

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