I interrupt the regularly scheduled program (my “Do What, Now?” multi-part series on Missions) to share an update on the “70 in 7” Project. As I began this post, I was closing a crazy month of travel (in August!) on a flight home from Providence, Rhode Island, where I participated in a dear college friend’s wedding. That weekend concluded a series of significant events that were truly life-changing and reinforced all that the Lord has been instilling in me from the beginning of this project. And as I am now on the homestretch of the project itself, surly I know that these seven months are but the beginning of a transformation far greater than I ever imagined when God gave me the assignment in the first place.
Some of my readers have been faithfully following along from the beginning of the “70 in 7” Project, where I set out to lose 70 pounds and write 70 blog posts in seven months, April 1st-November 1st of this year, attempting to average 10 pounds and 10 blog posts per months. Of course, our ever-unpredictable bodies can only be controlled to a degree; throw in a few parties, BBQs, and vacations, and a wrench is inevitably tossed in too. Meanwhile, as time is merely puddled indiscriminately along the path, its also unpredictable nature inevitably precludes the perfection of intention. In other words, I didn’t have the time to write. Yeah. Or at least looking back, the unpredictability of schedules made it nearly impossible to really put thought to pen and pen to computer.
So with five months down, I’ve lost a “low” 25 pounds (plus more than 20 inches on my body and shurnk from a size 28 to size 14) and written now 42 blog posts. Okay, so maybe I’m not maintaining my 10-factor average attempt on either side of discipline (I should be at a high of 50 pounds lost and 50 posts written), but to be perfectly honest, I don’t think that’s the biggest news of this project. What’s more important, at least to me, is somehow something I’ve known all along, but a wise man, who had never heard of my blog or its title, recently summed up.
“Daily decisions and discipline determine your destiny,” said Rick Loy, AdvoCare Vice President of Sales & Field Development, at a July meeting I attended at Gwinnett Civic Center here in Atlanta.
I don’t know why it should shock me to suddenly realize that all of the new “disciplines” in my life have led me to extraordinary transformation both inside and out, and I am beginning to glimpse my destiny coming to life. Even beyond that is the fact that I am learning and growing every single day, BUT I have been remise in my writing because the passing thoughts and ah-ha moments strike so randomly that I have not yet been able to perfect them verbally. Tonight my ah-ha moment came in the shower when I realized that my perfectionism is breeding procrastination, AND, I recently heard another wise man say that “Passion trumps perfection every time!”
So here’s what I’m going to say—and I’m going to say it fast: my blog posts may not be the most well-written or lengthy personal essays going forward, but my passion will be clear. Someday they will get expanded, polished and printed in a book that people will pay to read; they will be challenged and transformed, just as I am now. But it’s all got to start somewhere…even if it’s in a few silly, stringy syllables—it’s all heart from here!
The Art of Choosing True Life 