Set yourself up to success: First do what is necessary

We all have a unique combination of genes, personal history, experiences and emotional baggage that we carry with us through life. This is always important to remember - but even more so when it comes to motivating ourselves to reach goals. The tendency to compare ourselves to others is strong and can easily distort our goal-setting. What works for me does not necessarily work for you and the other way around.

This it what makes life both incredibly exciting and extremely frustrating. We can look at other people and try to learn from their experiences and take their advice, but we need to tweak it so it fits to us and our life style and everyday life. And sometimes we simply have to say: "That's not in my genetic make-up" and focus on the things that are instead. Don't fall victim to the Swimmer's Body Illusion: Olympic swimmers do not have those streamlined bodies because they swim a lot - they swim really well because they have the genetic disposition for that particular physique (read more about this on Rolf Dobelli's brilliant blog about The Art of Thinking Clearly). Swimming is a great form of exercise and it will make you feel great if you do it for the right reasons but you will set yourself up to fail if you think it can change your genes.

You are an individual: Stop comparing yourself to others and start working on improving yourself instead.

Set yourself up to success. Play up your strengths and focus on the things you *can* do. Experiment and you will discover that this list is much longer than you could ever imagine. As soon as you hear yourself go "I can't...." stop that line of thinking and focus on what you can instead. Remember your successes and move forward from there. If you had told me two years ago that in a not too distant future I would be blogging about how to become slimmer, healthier and happier based on my own experience I would have told you you were full of it. I just didn't have imagination to see that. But I started with doing what was necessary for me and it just rolled on from there... and I'm not done yet! You can do it too! :-)