I get a lot of requests all the time to show people how to stay Motivated to be Healthy. I think it's very easy when you've been as sick and miserable and fat as I've been at different stages of my life. Each time I needed to quit abusing myself with either drugs; cigarettes, booze, running around with reckless women (which is still one of my on going challenges) and the like, it was always to a point to where I had to do it as my health started suffering more than the pleasure I was getting from the things I was doing that were not healthy. So those memories stick out in my head a lot. And of course I deviate every so often and man oh man, do I pay the price for it. To coat tail a portion of a phrase of Zig Ziglar's, I tweaked it this way, “People always want what they want when the want exceeds the effort!” I wanted to be healthy, so “I became interested in what makes me tick when I got fed up with what was making me sick!” I actually thought being healthy was something esoteric, i.e. for the select few. You had to be born into it or something crazy like that. I finally came to realize that we're all healthy automatically by design and sick only by default. Then I took responsibility for my actions. Now I'm rewarded greatly with lots of energy, I'm able to cope with stress so much better and am never sick. Another lesson here is, “We never catch disease, we earn it and it stems from crud in the blood from being drunk with junk!”

Now keeping motivated is not the key here. Motivation is nothing more than something to get you going…HABIT is what keeps you going. So here are 5 habits that help me to keep going all the time (and I have to thank the great Marc LeBlanc in LaJolla, CA for his encouragement here):

1. One of the first things I do in the morning is I either walk 1 mile by going down to the post office or the bank to run an errand to get the day going or I go out in the backyard to bounce on my trampoline for about 5-10 minutes. This is another great benefit of a home based business, your 24 hours is all your own and you're not cashing it in for someone else's gain.
2. I always drink 2 glasses of water in the morning and 2 glasses in the afternoon and as much else as I want throughout the day, but at least I get those 4 glasses in each day (Remembering never to drink “The Crap from the Tap”). A good lesson here is: YOU DON'T HAVE TO DRINK 8 GLASSES OF WATER A DAY, you need about 8 glasses of fluid a day but it doesn't have to be all water. It could be in the form of fresh fruit or vegetable juices! Isn't that good news?
3. I ALWAYS START THE DAY WITH DELICIOUS, FRESH, SUCCULENT FRUIT THAT'S IN SEASON.
4. I evaluate myself every 30 days to monitor my progress and stickability!
5. I always reward myself with great things by never beating myself up over a few deviations. I try to keep a phrase in my mind that the impeccable Rosita Perez said one time that really hits the mark, “Let go of Perfection and Settle for Excellence!” Isn't that a classic from a classy lady?

I have had to come to the realization that I'm a special person with an unnegotiable self-worth and I'm always untying the ribbon to this gift of the only true thing we really have and that's our health. Without it, we are NOTHING! That's how I keep motivated.

In my website I wrote an article on “The 9 things that will keep us healthy all the time” along with 14 other articles for your mental perusal. And I would also encourage you to enjoy the QUOTES Section in the site as those are all my 100's of quotes over the years all in a sequential order showing you how to play “The Game of Life” and how to “Be the Healthiest Person on the Planet and not the Wealthiest Person in the Grave”. Don't sell yourself short, you are the best you got…YOU ARE SPECIAL!

Wayne “The Mango Man” Pickering

Copyright © 2003 Center for Nutrition, Inc