Authorized U-Turns

I was biking to work this morning when I realized I forgot to make an important bank deposit. I had a nice bit of inertia going but I was reminded of the best piece of advice from a book I read last year on the recommendation of a friend. Although it is fairly long I am going to quote it in its entirety.

If you’ve ever ridden in a car with GPS satellite navigation system, you know how it works. Plug in your destination, and the system -- using satellites to plot your current and final points -- tells you exactly what to do when. Turn left after 400 feet. Stay straight. Get in right lane. But let’s say you make a mistake and miss a turn or turn onto the wrong street. The GPS doesn’t berate you, doesn’t scold you, doesn’t tell you that you might as well drive off a cliff, since you made a mistake and missed First Avenue. Instead, all it says, very politely, is this: “At the next available moment, make an authorized U-turn.” The GPS recognizes the mistake matter-of-factly and simply guides you back onto the right road. The GPS allows for mistakes and tries to help you correct them. That’s the kind of mentality we want you to have. You’re going to make wrong turns. You’re going to turn left at the hot dogs, make a right at the blueberry pie (or Avila Valley Barn Pie! -Chris), and occasionally merge onto the interstate of banana-nut pancakes with a side order of sausage patties. Does that mean you should steer off the dietary cliff and fall into the fatty crevasse of destructive eating?

Of course not. What it means is that you need to pay closer attention to the road signs and the instructions about how to make it to your final destination. It also means that you can’t beat yourself up with a basket of croissants every time you lick a little whipped cream off your finger. So what you’re going to do -- right now -- is acknowledge that you will face obstacles. And instead of falling into the avoidant and defeatist mentality by drop-kicking healthy eating the moment you make one bad choice, you will confront it.

Needless to say that I did in fact pull a U-Turn and made the deposit. Huzzah!

One quick closing thought though. When I was college, and even for a few years afterward, I had the "ultimatum mindset". I would set lofty New Years' Resolutions, craft impossibly difficult plans that I somehow thought I could pull off, and then I would invariably slip up just a little bit. Back then the slip up would sink the entire ship. I would binge or find excuses to stop doing what I planned or drift into apathy. No longer. I allow myself failure but then I am quick to make that U-turn. In the end it is much more forgiving, sane, and healthy. Make the change today.