Being Well…Satisfied

No one is 100% satisfied with themselves.

A satisfied person seeks no improvement on their bodies, their minds, their jobs, or their relationships.  If someone was completely satisfied, that person would not set goals, change, or achieve anything else.

When it comes to physical appearance, or health and wellness, I think it is more common for people to express their unsatisfactory state.  Too fat.  Too slow.  Hair too curly.  Eyebrows too bushy.  Arms too flabby.  Trouble sleeping.  Trouble eating the right things.  Misery loves company because everyone is unsatisfied with something; you want to spark a conversation, just gripe.  Personally, I want to run a marathon and not want to feel like my legs are about to disintegrate.  Therefore, my goal is to train smart, without injury.  I don’t have weight loss goals, or weight gain goals, butt or calf goals, or speed goals.  I have a wellness goal : finish a race without feeling like I’d rather be dead.  That goal comes with running 40-50 miles a week…ugh…

But I digress…satisfaction.  March is usually the month when the resolutioners decide they will never achieve their weight loss or fitness goal and roll back into old habits.  I see it at the gym every year, January its packed like a Five Guys bag of fries, March it’s like a 7:30am Organic Chemistry lecture hall.  Unsatisfied with the difficulty of achieving the task at hand, a white flag is waved at the insurmountable goal, good-bye, maybe next year.  Its OK to fail because so many have failed before me.

Why are you unsatisfied?  My question: what was your goal?  Was your goal, “I want to lose weight this year”, or “I want to eat better”, or “I want to spend more time with my family”?  These are called unmeasurable goals.  What is weight or better or more time?  How about, “I want to lose 2 pounds a week for 10 weeks”, or “I want to eat at least 2 pieces of fruit a day 5 days a week”, or “I want to take my kids out once every other week to a local attraction”.  Wow, those goals are measurable, achievable, and reasonable.  They require changes of habit.

A tired dog is a happy dog!

Completing a goal feels good.  If I take an apple and some strawberries to work and I eat them, I can say, man, may the power of fruit be with me!  If I lose 2 pounds, or one pound in a week, I can say, hey, I feel light and bouncy today, yay me!  If I take my dogs out for a run with me (I don’t have kids yet), and we finish and they are pooped out, I can give them a biscuit and think, a tired dog is a happy dog.  That pleases me.  My dogs are happy, I am happy, and I can look to my next goal to be happy again.  I’m perpetually happy!  I’m infectiously happy, encouraging actually.  The sense of accomplishment is empowering, perpetual.  I look forward to my next goal and I want to share this feeling.

It is not complicated, or drawn out, or burdensome.  It is small, simple, bite-sized.  Achievable and repeatable.

My question, then, is are you satisfied?  I never am.