Want to Ramp Up Your Career in the New Year? Look at Successful Dieters for Inspiration

Have you ever noticed when you're truly focused on achieving a goal, everything else falls into place? You're so focused, determined and persistent that other things around you look like a similar goal? Maybe it's just us? Anyway, we read this post on LinkedIn by John C. Abell, their senior editor, and it resonated with us. Although his post is about the habits of highly successful dieters since he lost 80 pounds on Weight Watchers, we couldn't help but make the connection to highly successful achievers. (And if you want to drop a few pounds in the new year, his tips make total and complete sense). We're just so accustomed to reading something and putting a career spin on it that well, we kind of can't help ourselves. Without further ado... 1. It's not how you binge but how you recover. He writes, "But with any dieting there is something to be learned from cardio training: It isn't that you get tired, it's how quickly you recover. The eating analogy is starting right over when you have overdone it -- not next Monday, or next month or next year." Have you ever bombed a client meeting or ran with a project that you were proud of until you realized it went in one direction and your boss wanted it to go in another one? Well, this is so true. If you're binging, yes what matters is how you bounce back and at work and in life, it's important to pay attention to the recovery. What did you learn? What can you do to prevent it from happening again? 2. Do what you can, but don't mistake discomfort for pain. We really dig this. Abell points out the Marines indicate that "pain is weakness leaving the body." As long as you're moving forward, it's all good. If you do too little, it isn't worth it and doesn't make an impact. If you do too much, it hurts. Try not to let either excuse get in the way. 3. Obsessively weigh yourself, unless you shouldn't. While he points out the importance of a weekly weigh-in at Weight Watchers, he also suggests weighing yourself several times each day. It "can be a great way to understand how your body reacts to things" whether it's how much you lose after a spinning class or how much you put on after eating a big bowl of pasta. Getting that data, he says, is a huge motivator. Even if you don't obsessively weigh yourself throughout the day, he recommends keeping it to regular intervals. This is so important when pursuing a goal! If you don't measure yourself and how you're doing against the end result, how will you know if you're getting there? Are you on target? Sometimes being obsessed and completely in the game is the only way to get it done. 4. Make it fun! "Everything is a game," he writes. "WW gives you trinkets, and makes you check in. Get it? Exercise is boring, but anything can be made into a game. This works for me, and it's minimalist: I have a playlist of songs, some fast, some slow. It doesn't matter." How true is this when you're working on deadline? Doesn't music make it more fun? How else can you infuse some life into a goal to keep it light and oh-so-colorful? Abell indicates he wears a headband over his eyes so he can't look at a clock to essentially watch paint dry. Just some "food" for thought...

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Want to Ramp Up Your Career in the New Year? Look at Successful Dieters for Inspiration

Vicki Salemi

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Vicki Salemi