Thinking that you are still the same you, and you can go back to the old you if you just want to enough is like thinking you can recreate the wonderful weather from last summer. That is the trap of optimism, assuming that just because you can imagine it going well, it actually will. In reality it is just as likely to rain all summer.

Often people try to prove that they haven’t been changed by their addiction by approaching their new health and fitness program with an overly optimistic mindset. They think that getting back to fitness ‘fast’ shows that they weren’t really as stuck as it had appeared.

They begin their health and fitness program with a burst of optimistic commitment, thinking that more sessions per week will be better than fewer, more weight lifted will be better than less, more laps jogging around the track will be better than just taking a walk. What inevitably happens is a breakdown, an injury, a ‘pushback’ from their subconscious, or some external life crisis that causes a pause in the program, which soon lengthens to a full stop. Once again, stuck again.

You just can’t jump from ‘in it’ to ‘out of it’, and no leap can be made from wanting to recover, to ‘recovered’.

Plan with pessimism; approach with optimism.

Plan that you’ll need more time than you expect. Then do your best.

It really is that simple, though no way, easy.