Success is a sum of small efforts.

 [pullquote]Success is the sum of small efforts, repeated day after day.  [/pullquote] Like a New Year’s resolution, new diets and exercise programs often fail in one to two weeks.  The gyms make huge money form these decisions to fail that fizzle out.  Just look at you local gym in January and how busy it is but the numbers slowly trickle to the normal membership in weeks.  Instead of thinking failure is inevitable, consider using it to motivate yourself to keep pushing to succeed.  We have all had bad days where we overeat or fall short on our exercise goals.  It can be very discouraging.  You need to dust yourself off and get back up.  Lick your wounds and get back out there.   Success at anything you do is just repeated effort.  I try to avoid the word failure and focus on the term less successful endeavor.  You will get there, so keep trying.  

[pullquote]Successful weight loss takes programming, not willpower- Phil McGraw[/pullquote] I like to say weight loss and being healthy are like running a computer program.  You need to get the program started and then keep hitting run every day to continue the progress.  
If I wanted to do 100 pushups per set, I would not assume that I could start there and accomplish this without working up to it slowly, so why do we expect miracles with weight loss.   You need to start where you currently are and make small repeatable steps over time and slowly improve toward your goal.  Small daily efforts will get you towards your goals.  Don’t ever think of the end results on a daily basis.  You can have it in the back of your head at all times, but try to only focus on what is needed it for motivation.  The problem with those people giving up and quitting already is that they kept their eye on the prize and only the prize. There most likely was no plan, which means they had no daily repetitive goal, thus bringing on failure very fast.  Remember, the progress fo today will get you one step closer towards that goal.

I have written two prior articles on similar topics: Motivation tip: Success and Weight loss tip: Celebrate your weight loss success!.  

The bottom line: Weight loss is a sum of small efforts that add up to meet your goal.  It is easy to become discouraged when you do not meet your goals and your expected length time.  The key to success is maintaining confidence.  Always remember that weight loss is a period of small efforts that add up to a large loss of weight.