Trouble sticking to a plan? Same.

Because I know you're on pins and needles wondering how my games-only weekend was with Moxie, I'll share. (heehee)

The short answer is that I stuck to my plan, and I hope progress was made (more on the progress in a moment). But as always, there's a little more to the story.

Thursday and Friday, my goal was to have fun and take the weave poles out of the equation while increasing the pressure a bit on Friday. I was so focused on her having fun that I forgot to handle a couple of times - oops! (Can anyone else relate?) I felt rusty, and my timing was off, but Mox seemed to have fun. Goal met.

On Saturday, I took a toy into the ring with us (she didn't know I had it), and she did her weaves on the first try! (Actually, we would have Q'd had I not had the toy.) She was excited to see the toy appear and ran beautifully. Goal exceeded!

On Sunday, my greed kept trying to sneak in. It kept whispering, "Leave the toy and go for the Q - she can do it!" I admit, it was SOOOOOO tempting! I even tried to rationalize that she should realize I don't always have a toy and ... well, you know the rest. Ultimately, I stuck to my plan, hid the toy in my waistband, and walked to the line. She popped out around pole six, so we redid them and played before finishing the run.

Why is it SO hard to stick to a plan that will help us? I don't care if it's in a trial or losing weight - why do we sabotage ourselves? It's wild.

I'm most happy that Moxie seemed to have fun this weekend, but I'm most proud that I stuck to my plan even when I didn't want to. Our brains are wired to seek pleasure and avoid struggle, even when it's for a greater goal. So when we stick to a plan - especially one that chooses "failure" - part of our brain pushes back.

We need a really good WHY when we meet with these opposing forces. In my case, I am trying to "fix" Moxie's weaves for the long haul - not just a day and a games Q. I know I need to accumulate dozens of positive associations to overcome what's in place now. So when my brain started getting greedy (and lazy), I reminded myself that I wasn't doing my plan for today, I was doing it for the future.

As for progress. Did I make progress this weekend? Maybe. I hope so. Only time will tell. That's another issue with us sticking to plans, especially the ones where the payoff is in the future. In a single day, we often can't see the progress, but a year from now, this one weekend may have made all the difference. 

What I do know is that I trust myself a little more because I chose not to sabotage my goals and my WHY. And THAT has tons of value! Okay, this is corny, but how about instead of willpower, it's WHYpower? Because when we have a choice to do the easy thing with an immediate possible payoff or the difficult thing with a more probable lasting payoff, our WHY will be the motive we need to recommit to our goals.