416. Break the Challenge into Small Bites

“From an early age, I’ve been in love with learning, and I’ve always been imaginative and a risk-taker.  I didn’t realize it at the time, and got into a lot of trouble along the way. Writing my book put me in touch with what makes me tick. Now, I realize it was all for a purpose, and that was to take me to the point where I am now in my life.”

On September 11, 2001, Debbie watched from her Manhattan office on the ninth floor at 34^th Street as swarms of people surged into the Holland Tunnel, only to be turned away en masse. “All I could think about was, at my weight of 320 pounds, if I were down there I would be trampled or dead.  It scared the living daylights out of me.  That was a big turning point in my life.”

“I’m a sponge for knowledge, facts and information. I wanted to do my own research and process the facts myself. I did not want to be persuaded by marketing—been there, done that, know the tricks. I just wanted the truth. I cobbled together a plan that works for me. Six months into it, I realized I had lost 60 pounds! It’s a simple concept, although it sounds extraordinarily difficult to apply to your life on a daily basis. It found it was not as hard as some people would like you to believe. It became a calling for me. I knew I needed to teach people how to do this. If I figured it out from the state I was in, I could teach people how to do it for themselves.”

1. Don’t let fear keep you in a place where you do not want to be.

2. Choose to be brave.

3. If you work hard and have a little success every day, you can meet a challenge that might have seemed insurmountable at first.

4. Be conscious and aware of your “whys.” With food, for example, what you are eating is less important than why.

5. Whatever state of health you are in, you can improve it today with just a little bit of thought and change.

The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom, by Don Miguel Ruiz and Janet Mills