Small Victories

7-Eleven, my home away from home. I know every clerk behind the counter, every item in stock and my fingerprints are ever present on the soda machine. Today I need a bottle of water. I quickly make my way to the back of the store where 32-ounce bottles of Arrowhead await. Bottle in hand, I make my way past the cereal, the ice cream, the Hostess Cupcakes, the candy, the cookies and head straight for the counter. Once there I look down and notice an unassuming box set next to the register. The miniature Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups beacon as my mind engages in a debate over the damage one tiny chocolate peanut butter morsel will really do. I can certainly compensate for that minuscule taste with an extra 10 minutes on a bike. What will it hurt, who will know, everyone else does it. I’ve been doing so well, no alcohol, no bread, no pasta, no fat…in the grand scheme of things, what difference will one bite of chocolate really make? I pick up the Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup. The metallic wrapper warms in my hand. I imagine removing the wrapper and dropping the morsel into my mouth. The chocolate coating melts away revealing the smooth peanut butter filling. I glance at the tiny wrapper in my hand, I deserve this. Of course all too often I decide I “deserve this” which might explain why I have been on and off a diet for the last 20 years.
I wrote the above in March of 2002. I was just a few months into a new life but I didn’t know it yet. I thought my problem was my weight and my inability to stick to a diet. I thought if I lost weight my problems would be solved. I didn’t know then what a tremendous coping mechanism all my unhealthy behaviors had become. I was about to discover the answer wasn’t finding the best diet, the perfect workout or a magic pill. The answer was in shifting behaviors and perspective…one at a time…permanently. Permanent lifestyle changes don’t happen overnight. Permanent lifestyle changes rarely offer the big ticket instant gratification that had been the big draw all my life. As opposed to focusing on the big ticket instant gratification moments that are fleeting, I turned my attention to the small victories. Small victories such as passing on the Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups at the checkout counter in March of 2002, can lead to big victories such as no candy in 6 years. The hard won gratification being that both my blood pressure and cholesterol numbers dropped back into the healthy range without medication. It is the small victories I want to share in this forum because it is the small moments, the tiny victories that will change our lives if we let them.