Goals

From today's Spark Coach activities: Spend a few minutes writing about the reasons behind your fitness and weight-loss goals. What is your true motivation? What do you hope to achieve or experience after reaching your goal?

I am stiff and inflexible in body and mind. I want to be able to move in any direction I want, maybe even several directions at once like in dancing, without pain. I want to be confident. I want to be relaxed, even when it's all hitting the fan at once. I want to be happy and active and social. I see my poor physical condition as a barrier to these things. I need some emotional development, too. They go together.

It's hard to be respected as a fat nurse. It's difficult to meet the physical demands of the job when you are weak and fat. I'm not old, but I'm squarely middle-aged, in a field that doesn't have a lot of job security right now. I've always tried to develop my skills, but now I need to develop my body to match. This is so that I can look good on paper and also look good across the desk during an interview; it is chilling to realize that the people I hope will hire me in the future are very likely to be younger than I am, from now on. I have to look like the kind of person who can keep up.

What I hope to experience when I reach my goal is a feeling of being strong, relaxed, and attractive. Having a wide social acquaintance and a good support network. Being able to go do a lot of fun things, not just sitting at home alone on the computer. Being the kind of person that has interesting things to share, with the energy to be interested in other people. Being able to earn respect without starting from behind.

None of that seems very concrete. How does one measure these things?