I wrote this a  year ago. Though a lot of people who read it this year are different from those last year, I am hopeful it will be as popular and helpful as it was last year!

Every single day of your Body for Life challenge, you will be presented with opportunities to change your plans. Seriously, every day you will receive invitations to dine, attend events, to stay after school, to haul someone somewhere, to sleep in, and any number of other things that have the power to change your routine for that day. How you respond to those invitations will dictate the course and the outcome of your challenge results. Your response will have to depend on two things:
1. How serious you are about getting serious challenge results;

2.And how serious the situation that arises is.

Let’s say that a “TEN” situation arises, an emergency jeopardizing the health or life of one of your children or another family member. Really, there IS no choice–you do the right thing and go, because you know that NOTHING is more important than that person and situation having your undivided attention.

Let’s say a “ONE” situation arises. Someone you couldn’t care less about asks you to go have a Latte and donut with them. That’s easy, too. You and your challenge deserve better than a flimsy event like that. You just kindly but firmly say “No thanks” and leave it at that.

The toughies are the “tweeners.” And the challenge is to stay faithful to your challenge without rupturing a relationship or inflicting pain on yourself or others. The gang is going out for a beer on Friday to wish someone well on their last day of work; or your boss asks you to stay an extra half hour to finish his report; and your workout was scheduled for that time. Can you respond to those requests and still get your workout in that day? If so, sure, go ahead with the “interruption.” If not, be ready to say, “I just can’t–I’m sorry.” And leave it at that.

I can almost hear you saying, “he doesn’t understand,” but I do. I do UNDERSTAND that you never want to tell anyone “No” and that this is a never ending invitation for others to take advantage of you. “No” is a complete sentence, and a complete response. You really must be able to sort out the toughies if you have any hope of succeeding without driving yourself crazy. What will happen if you don’t is that you’ll continually give in to situations that you shouldn’t and you’ll be so disgusted with yourself that when you finally say “No” to someone it will be so forceful that they’ll fear for their life! And if your firmness costs you a job or friendship, what the heck kind of a job or friendship did you really have anyway?

Look, if you need some help with courage here, just tell them that “I promised my Uncle Mike I’d do something for him tonight and he will really be disappointed with me if I don’t go through with it.”

Courage is like most other character traits. The more you use it, the easier it gets!

God bless! Carpe diem.