The road less taken

Love is much like dieting. The more you try and fail the easier it seems to accept you are doomed to failure. You are unlovable, others are unlovable, you're fat, you're destined to fail...

Maybe this is possible. If you are taking the same path/route over and over again and finding no success, maybe this is a destined path to failure. That's OK. You just have to stop and realize...this is a path to failure. Was it not Robert Frost who said, "two roads diverged in a wood, and I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference."? Crazy. Yet you know the path to change has almost relentlessly been the same one. If it is weight loss, you may call it by different names --ATKINS, WEIGHT WATCHERS, JENNY CRAIG -- but it is in fact the same path. Hence, you will probably see no difference.

So, what defines a different path? For starters, do all paths lead to the same place. NO. Do you want the path to lead to the same place, though achieved differently? Well, logically no. Because so far the path has lead to failure.

So, as I will do tonight, make a goal...a treasure chest...a glittering prize. I will put it on a piece of paper. I will take an 8.5 x 11 inch piece of normal paper and at one end draw, write, glue a photo of, etc my glittering prize. Then at the complete far end I will put me, my current status, picture of what I don't like, etc. I will write down the numerous list of things I have tried to reach my goal and chart how far they got me towards the other end of the paper.

Next, I will take a fresh piece of paper with the same goals and current me, and start to develop a new path. I will always keep the old "me path" next to it so that I may not stray down the same path that failed me in the past. By identifying weaknesses, loss weary shortcuts in your first "me path", you can learn to develop new paths not based on recurrent failure, but possible success.

Continue with a new sheet of "me path" every week, month, day, whatever works for you, and continuing remapping until you find your "path to success".