Getting on the right track and staying there is hard for me. I like to get grand ideas when I can’t really do anything about them – right before bed, when I’m driving, etc. It’s very easy to have a grand plan you’re going to act on – in the morning, when you get home, when the kids go to bed. And then it’s also very, very easy for me to get derailed once that “magic time” comes.

Right now, just as I’m about to turn off the computer and go get some much needed sleep, I’m thinking about going through The 4-Hour Workweek by Tim Ferris,  and starting my dreamlining tomorrow – when I get to work. What typically happens when I get to work, however, is I check my email, get caught up in “just one game” before starting work, or someone finds me with a problem and I end up starting work a bit early.

Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

But the pattern is the same at other times. “When I get home” time turns into sitting for a minute, making supper, watching the kids’ movie, playing with the kids, putting the kids to bed, et cetera. “After the kids go to bed” is instead checking email again (home version, this time), catching up on the feed reader (also something I do regularly at work), and playing games online while I catch up on every episode of LOST before the new season starts.

Okay, so I’ve identified my problem areas. Now it should be only a matter of time before I recognize those behaviors and just say no to them, right?

*sigh* No, another problem I have is visualizing the Big Picture. I’m very content to live in the moment – enjoy the video game and put another chocolate in my mouth instead of hooking up the darn Wii and using the new game I got to help me lose some extra weight. I’ll drink the beer, telling myself that it’s because it helps to calm the cough I can’t get rid of (it does, really!) instead of trying out water to see if that does the job just as well without the calories.

I want to get some big pictures printed at work of what I really want. I really want to be skinny, to feel good about myself. I really want to earn extra money and follow the principals in the book I just read. I really want to be a better wife and mother, and I know there are pictures out there to help remind me of this. Once I find them, I’ll make them into posters and tape them to the awful wallpaper (I have to take a picture of it sometime to share).

Then when I find myself indulging in that really bad habit (BH#1) that I want to break, I can stare up at the photos. Do I want to be skinny, or do I really want to taste the chocolate that in the end, isn’t that good anyway?

I need to get back on track.

What is your biggest struggle right now in the new year?