Recently, my husband and I celebrated the completion of a puzzle he had purchased over the new year’s eve holiday in 2018.  We were both sick that weekend, so we stayed in and worked on the jigsaw puzzle. The title of the puzzle was the Aurora Borealis. 

So the top part of the puzzle was all the splendor of the northern lights and the bottom of the puzzle was a camp site with about five tents. I started at the bottom of the puzzle with the camp site and that part went pretty quickly. I noticed that I could pick up a puzzle piece, find it in the picture, and fairly easily place it into the puzzle. My husband worked on placing all the edge pieces.  After our two parts were completed, that only left the northern lights. I knew this would be the most challenging. 

The interesting thing I quickly realized was that the strategy I used that led to success in the bottom half of the puzzle was not going to get me success in the top half of the puzzle. I could not just compare the puzzle pieces to the picture, because the lights gave little distinction. Too many of the pieces looked similar. I would need a different strategy. I had to rely on the pieces themselves to direct me where to place them. 

I find a similar analogy in life. What got us to our current level of success is often not going to get us to the next level. Similarly, with weight loss, you may have tried many different strategies in the past, and some of them may have worked. But as we age and our bodies begin to change, what worked in the past is not likely to get us where we want to go now.  We have to be willing to try new things. We will likely need to learn to eat differently, practice feeling differently, and ultimately, think different thoughts.  

As the pace of life quickens, more demands are being placed upon all of us. Life is requiring us to utilize more creativity and ingenuity.  Those who savor, generate, and get comfortable with new ideas, energy, and implementation will be the winners in this new millennium. 

Just as low fat, high carbohydrate diets of the past with an over emphasis on highly refined carbohydrate-rich, processed foods and grains led us to the current epidemic of overweight and obesity, so too must this give way to new ways of eating with more emphasis on diets of high quality fats, moderate protein, and lower carbohydrate foods that do not significantly raise blood sugar.

The approach is the same. It demands courage. It will require an open and curious mind. But we can ask for wisdom from our future selves, who are already where we want to be. What wisdom can your future self impart to your current self that will help you move forward? 

As my coach, Brooke Castillo recently wrote in our March manual for Self-Coaching Scholars: “If you want to create a different future, you have to create something that doesn’t exist in the past.”  Instead of seeing an unknown future as an obstacle to run from. Or being overwhelmed by the future. Why not embrace the unknown as a blank canvass of multiple puzzle pieces to work with, try new combinations, and carve new strategies. The multiple small steps will ultimately create the path to your Golden Future.

And if you are looking for a life coach who can help you as you navigate the multiple transitions that life brings your way, feel free to message me or contact me through my website for a free consultation.