In our house Christmas is a big deal. We start decorating the house as soon as the leftover Thanksgiving turkey is packed into the fridge. The last couple of years we’ve even started a little sooner. It makes us happy. But my favorite part of the holiday isn’t Christmas Day, it’s the days leading up to Christmas. All of the Christmas movies, the carols, the smell of the pine tree in then house we wallow in all of it. We have our little yearly rituals like cutting down the Christmas tree visiting the town of Jim Thorpe for their Victorian Christmas days, driving to see the lights on the boulevard in Berwick PA.

What I really love is the build up of the whole thing. To be honest Christmas day is always just a little bit sad. When the last episode of A Christmas Story ends on Christmas night it marks the ceremonial close of the holiday for another year. And while the days fly by a lot can change in a year so I’m always left wondering what everything will look like the next time we drag all of the ornaments out of the basement and go to cut down the tree.

I’ve talked a bit about how I view my weight loss as a journey. Part of what has kept me focused and positive is envisioning a future version of myself doing things that I simply didn’t do at 300 lbs. From buying clothes to running, to being more comfortable while traveling. Each day I tried to create a mental picture of that future version of myself. Those intentional daydreams gave me something to look forward to.

I hate this phrase but it seems appropriate. I was ‘manifesting’ that version of me every day. I couldn’t wait to meet him. That anticipation of a future better version of me kept me moving. Now, I’ve actually become that once imaginary future version I made up in my head. Am I as perfect as what I imagined, not even close. I still have all of the struggles and faults of that old version of me. But I have done many of the things that that earlier version of me envisioned, so in some ways those things did come to pass.

There are several little tricks you can use to help build anticipation and keep you on track and to break up your journey into smaller pieces.

• Spend a few minutes each day quietly ‘daydreaming’ about a future version of you. Try to be specific; What are you doing? What are you wearing? Where are you? Paint that picture as clearly as you can. When you face moments of doubt or if you feel like you’re losing focus pull up this image in your mind. It can help remind you WHY you are doing this. Get excited about getting to meet that person one day. That anticipation can be powerful.
• Lay out some little wins along the way and celebrate them. Prepare them ahead of time so you have something to look forward to. For example, commit that when you lose 10 lbs you’re going to buy a new shirt (buying ‘normal’ clothes was a big deal for me). It doesn’t always have to be about buying something but reward yourself–maybe not with food. Knowing that there’s something to look forward to that is not in the dim distance can help you out when you feel like you’re just not moving fast enough.
• I’ll grant you the days can get monotonous. My wife and I have learned to build in little mini-vacations where we go away for the weekend once or twice a year. I book the trips way ahead of time (usually as Christmas presents) and we lock them down on the calendar. This gives us something to look forward to. We do the same thing with concerts and other events. Heck, some weeks just going to our favorite Mexican restaurant is an event to look forward to. Having something to look forward to on the calendar gives us something to think about when the days are long or difficult.

Pro Tip: When going to a Mexican restaurant limit yourself to 12 chips, Chicken Fajitas are your friend, share your rice with a friend and skip the refried beans. You’re on your own with the margaritas.

You can use anticipation as motivation. About a year ago I was on Facebook, doom scrolling, when an ad popped up for this thing called The Conqueror Challenges. They’re virtual ‘races’ that cover a specific distance and take place for set amount of time. You can set the number of days you want to take to complete a challenge so it can closely match how much exercise you do and what you want to track. When you complete a challenge you get a medal.

At first I thought this is kinda silly. Why would I pay to exercise every day? Who needs this kind of motivation? Well friends, my initial assessment was wrong. Janet (my wife) signed up for the London and Paris challenges and every night she’d show me where she was in each city when she logged in her daily miles. They use Google maps for a lot of the challenges so you can track where you are and even put the little Pegman on the street and walk around. Every once in a while she’d get little virtual postcards from different landmarks along the way so she was learning something about each location. And when she was done she got these really nice medals. Kinda Cool!

I was in the middle of training for my first 50K so I was putting in long hours outside just going around and around my neighborhood and I needed some short term wins. So, I signed up for one, and was hooked. Knowing I was going to sit down and log my miles at night got me out the door on days when I didn’t really feel it. Sometimes I’d go just a bit further to hit some mileage I was trying to log, and if I missed a day or two I could see the time % beginning to catch up and it would give me a little push to get out there. The anticipation of getting the next medal was also a motivator. Hey, I like bling.

Below are some screen caps from the App showing my current challenge, Vienna Austria. You can see the total distance of the challenge is 510.8 miles and I set my goal for 70 days. They have this thing called ‘headwind’ that translates your miles down to just a few so that shorter challenges take longer. I only added this for this challenge because I was logging bike miles and I didn’t want to finish the challenge in just a couple of weeks.

As for the bling, here are the medals I’ve done so far.

Please note, I’m not trying to ‘sell’ this to you and I’m not compensated by these folks in any way. These challenges have just become one of the key tools I use to build anticipation as a way to help me keep moving along my path. We’ll talk about the power of community in another post, but one of the offshoots of this is they have a very active and super supportive FaceBook group. Like everything else with me, it took a long time for me to engage with others but once I did the response, support and sense of being part of something bigger than me has been overwhelming.

Remember, anticipation can be your friend and keep you excited about your journey. Until next time, Keep Moving Forward.