Are you getting fatter or fitter? Is your marriage getting stronger or weaker? Is the work you are doing becoming more meaningful or less meaningful? Is your life getting more exciting or more boring?
Most things in life don’t just become that way all at once. We tend to think that the bad stuff that happens, just happens suddenly, but the truth is that change usually happens over time, with things trending in a certain direction for a while before we notice them.
Many people are carrying a lot of extra bodyfat. They look in the mirror one day, can’t believe what they see, and wonder how this could happen. That forty pounds of extra fat showed up one day at a time. A mere two pounds of fat accumulation a year (which seems pretty insignificant), amounts to a whopping forty pounds over twenty years. That’s how it happens.
It was Zig Ziglar that said… Your spouse didn’t leave you because you didn’t make the bed that day. That wasn’t what did it. Relationships erode over time, eventually leading to a lack of interest and passion, and ultimately ending. Seldom is it one single event, and even when it appears to be a single event, things were likely crumbling over time.
You may have heard the phrase… things are either growing or dying. Everything in your life is either improving or eroding, either getting better or getting worse. It makes sense to check in with your life and see which way it is trending. If you are trending downward, and do nothing, things will ALWAYS get worse. It helps to decide what you want, note which direction you are heading, and act accordingly, if you are to get the outcome you want.
Our office runs a weight loss program. We use a pretty sophisticated body composition scale to gather data on Body Mass Index, muscle mass, body fat percentage, visceral fat, body water percentage, and even compiles the data and gives a “metabolic age.” I recently got it again myself. I compared it to my readings from last September (approximately six months ago). The numbers were not much different, but they were all slightly worse. Most people would say that the difference is insignificant. And I believe no one would be able to note these changes by just looking at me. However, these numbers are heading in the wrong direction. I am trending the wrong way. And it opened my eyes and alerted me to make some changes. It made me realize that I’ve been eating more of the things that I shouldn’t, that I’ve been working out with less intensity, and that I’ve been missing more workouts that I used to.
All of that is no big deal, right? Wrong! If I stay on that path, the numbers will be worse six months from now, worse yet a year from now, and in several years, I will wonder what happened to my body and health.
What’s the moral of the story? You are trending in a particular direction. It is either good or bad. And it is directly related to your choices and your behaviors. If you see that your health, finances, relationships, work, or enthusiasm about life are slowly getting worse, they will absolutely continue to decline. That’s the way you are trending. The good news is that you can shift that trend. You can take action and reverse course. And instead of being in a place of misery and despair years down the road, you can be better, have more, be more excited, and experience more happiness and fulfillment. The choice is yours.
Conditions like heart disease and cancer often fester for many years, undetected. By the time you know they are there, it is late, often too late. Don’t wait until things are really bad. Figure out which way you are trending, make a plan, get to work, and take charge of your destiny. Start trending in the RIGHT direction!