What is your Big Project?

So I'm not the only person trying to figure out the best way to use my spare hours. Leo has chosen his Big Project. My last entry was my first effort to figure out what my Big Project should be. I don't know what prompted somebody else's decision to focus his energies on one project, but I can point to what got me thinking about a better way for me to focus my own efforts. If you take a look at my reading list, you'll see a book called Breaking BUD/S. That book offers all kinds of tips about making it into the Navy SEAL teams, but that's just one application of the strategy at the core of the book. If you want to make the teams, then you should make every effort to achieve that goal. Figure out why you want it, and do everything you can to make it real.

The book also has a not so subtle subtext that failure to make every preparation, to do the things that you know you need to do to succeed, is simply a sign that you didn't want it enough. Talk is worthless. Preparation is an indication of your desire to achieve a very difficult goal. If you didn't do the things that are necessary to make it happen, that means that you didn't want it enough. Simply saying that you want it isn't enough. Talk is easy. Making it happen is the hard part.

I looked back over my entries from the very beginning of this blog before I picked up Breaking BUD/S. I looked at where I was then and thought about where I am now. I've progressed in my career, I've read plenty of books, and I'm a better husband and father than I was four years ago. I still weight pretty much the same. My fitness is better, and I'm definitely stronger. But my gut persists. That's one thing that I was trying to take care of four years ago that I've made little progress against. That must mean that I don't really want to lose the weight. Or, probably more accurately, I value the pleasures of consumption more than I desire the effects of not consuming.

My progress against other professional and personal goals against my failure to lose weight (although I have to confess that I consider not gaining weight a win) as a sign that I may be doing what needs to get done to achieve my goals. I've managed to keep working on my MBA because I want the career opportunities that may come with improved management skills. It's easy to lose sight of my desire to lose the gut when I'm faced with delicious food. Keeping the goal in mind may be the best remedy to staying on track. And not forcing it. That's a lesson I'm trying to learn. Make the myriad of small things that you need to do to achieve a goal an integral part of your life. Make them automatic.

Perhaps that's my Big Project. Rebuilding my routines to get me where I want to be physically.