For many of us, the end of the year brings up these fancy feelings about New Year’s resolutions.

This year though, I decided to do something radical or different. Instead of waiting for the end of the year or the start of the New Year, I meditated or rather reflected on a fundamental question that I had written about last week –

“What’s the ONE THING I could do now that would have the biggest impact on my business and/or my life in the new year?”

By the end of my reflection on October 31^st, I had made a resolution and set a challenging goal. However, I did not simply stop there. I then outlined a simple plan (a set of action plans that I need to do daily) with the start date as 1^st November. I did not give myself a place to hide. I simply made a decision and got started.

What was that challenging goal?

It was shedding the excess unhealthy kilos (25 Kg) that I was carrying everywhere with me comfortably. The bigger objective though was to be the fittest I have ever been but more on this some other time. For the last 3 years, I was telling myself – “Amar, you are just fine. You have not put on much weight and most of it is muscle anyway. Take it easy.”

I was scared of even standing on the weighing scale because I knew the scale wouldn’t lie. Isn’t it much easier to lie to ourselves?

This is exactly what I was doing.

But that day, I said enough is enough. No more excuses. Just get started.

I started with a 5 Kilometre walk the next day – November 1^st.

I made a promise to myself to walk every day and make this a part of my lifestyle (besides other things). While I continued for the next 12 days diligently, I fell sick on the 13^th day. By then I was already walking 7 Km. I took the next 3 days off and resumed my walk shortly. Needless to say, I had started eating healthier meals (more on this some other day – this is an interesting story in itself). By the end of November, I was doing 9 Kilometres daily and I finished the month walking 180 Kilometres.

Instead of obsessing about my weight, I continued with this regime in December too. More importantly, for the first time in my life, I walked at least 9-10 Kilometres each day of the month and I had clocked 295 Kilometres by the end of December.

I had checked my weight initially at the start and I couldn’t even believe it. I stood on the scale a few times wearing different clothes to see if the number would be any different. I am not going to tell you the number, but I am going to drop a generous hint – I was very close to hitting a century and making a New Personal High like the Sensex.

Fast forward December 31^st, and I have lost 14 Kilograms over the last 2 months. And I am super excited to continue this momentum and achieve my goal by March 2023.

Is there a point to be made here or is it just about patting my back?

There are actually a few interesting points to be made.

First, Real change doesn’t happen all at once. Real change is incremental.

When I first started, it felt like a big victory if I could just do 5 Km. After a while, that became 7 Km. Then an hour and 30 minutes of walking. One day, almost without even noticing it, I was suddenly and comfortably able to clock 12 Km. and still feel energetic.

It felt sudden at the time, but, of course, it wasn’t.

This is the sneaky power of incremental change. You make a small improvement, that becomes the new normal, you get used to it.

You make a small improvement again. That becomes the new normal again. You get used to it again. On and on the cycle goes.

Second, because incremental change is so sneaky, we barely ever notice we are getting closer to our goal, and then (again, seemingly “all of a sudden”) we’re there!