He says “Desires dictate our priorities, priorities shape our choices, and choices determine our actions. The desires we act on determine our changing, our achieving, and our becoming.”

So it looks a little something like this:

Desires -> Priorities -> Choices -> Actions

Is there a disconnect in our supposed desires (our goals) and the things we actually end up doing? If so, it’s time to fix that disconnect.

In my office is a beautiful painting of a wheat field. The painting is a vast collection of individual brushstrokes—none of which in isolation is very interesting or impressive. In fact, if you stand close to the canvas, all you can see is a mass of seemingly unrelated and unattractive streaks of yellow and gold and brown paint. However, as you gradually move away from the canvas, all of the individual brushstrokes combine together and produce a magnificent landscape of a wheat field. Many ordinary, individual brushstrokes work together to create a captivating and beautiful painting.

Each family prayer, each episode of family scripture study, and each family home evening is a brushstroke on the canvas of our souls. No one event may appear to be very impressive or memorable. But just as the yellow and gold and brown strokes of paint complement each other and produce an impressive masterpiece, so our consistency in doing seemingly small things can lead to significant spiritual results. “Wherefore, be not weary in well-doing, for ye are laying the foundation of a great work. And out of small things proceedeth that which is great” (D&C 64:33). Consistency is a key principle as we lay the foundation of a great work in our individual lives and as we become more diligent and concerned in our own homes.

“More Diligent and Concerned at Home“, Elder David A. Bednar, October 2009 General Conference

So many things we do in our lives are like brushstrokes on our souls. As we go about our day there are hundreds of opportunities for brushstrokes. Do we pick up the brush or are we making ourselves too busy for even one brushstroke?

Today’s weigh in is on a Monday. I’m not sure if that’s good or bad, it’s only because today is Monday.

You can see there’s been a big jump in my chart, but I’m not going to focus on that. My trend line is currently headed down, so that’s what I care about right now!

Last Week’s Weight: 257.2 lbs
Current Weight: 253.6 lbs
Difference: 3.6 lbs
Weeks to go: 28
Pounds to go: 23.6

Well, this week was tough with lots of leftovers and a birthday party (Happy Birthday, Julia!). I still managed to lose a bit, though, so that’s better than it could have been!

Posted via email from 30in30′s posterous

So this weigh in is a little late. Last week was pretty crazy: we had family in town for Thanksgiving plus a bunch of us were sick. Yuck. Here are my stats for the week (as usual, I'm reported my weighted averages):

Last Week's Weight: 258.70 lbs
Current Weight: 257.50 lbs
Difference: 1.2 lbs
Weeks to go: 30
Pounds to go: 27.5

Overall, not as good as last week, but it was more than a pound lost, which was great. I did good on Thanksgiving, but not so good since then with all the leftovers. It's time to refocus again.

Posted via email from 30in30′s posterous

This was definitely a good week to kick things off! My goal was one pound lost, but my weighted average went down 2.21 lbs.! Most of it was calorie tracking at Sparkpeople, weighing myself every day at Physics Diet, and lots of time on the basketball court! See you next week, if not sooner!

Posted via email from 30in30′s posterous

It’s been a great week so far! I won’t do my official update for the week yet, but after monitoring what goes in and getting plenty of exercise (mostly on the basketball court), the scale has had much lower numbers for me lately. I’m going to start using a weighted average (as suggested by The Hacker’s Diet) and implemented at Physics Diet to report my weight loss instead of using real numbers on the scale. This lets me factor out the noise in the numbers on the scale and focus on whether I’m losing weight or not.

I’m going to show my chart below that starts the day I began this 30 in 30 quest. You can see that there are red spots (the first day) that indicate when I weighed above my weighted average. The ‘>’ symbol is used to indicate that day’s weight. Green spots indicate where the weight was below the weighted average. The scale read 254.8 this morning, which might be partially due to some funkiness in the scale, but it brought down my weighted average by quite a bit. I’ve been tracking my weight for about two years this way, and I’ve found that when I enter in my weight into this website the same day I do a lot better about keeping it down. This time I’m using other calorie counting tools, too, but I really like PhysicsDiet.com for its price (free!) and ease of use. And who can argue about 1.73 pounds lost in less than a week? I’m looking forward to my first weekly report this Friday.

Posted via email from 30in30′s posterous

The goal: 30 pounds in 30 weeks. I already know a few things that work for me: measurement and accountability. It’s often said “where performance is measured, performance improves”. That’s why the blog. I also like using a “weighted average” seen in The Hacker’s Diet and at physicsdiet.com. The weighted average helps me see through the daily ups and downs on the scale. I’ve done physicsdiet.com before. I’m adding something new this time: more measurement and more accountability. I’m going to say what I eat and how much of it I eat and my extra accountability is to you. I want to set my goal weight at 230, because that’s a much prettier-sounding goal. I’ll give myself 33 weeks, which is July 1st, 2011, another nice round number. That gives me time to look good for the pictures. Once I get to 230, I don’t want my weighted average to go above 230 again.

Today’s weight: 262.4
Weeks to go: 33
Pounds to go: 32.4
Goal Date: Friday July 1, 2011

Posted via email from 30in30′s posterous

A week or so later I started my own list. It’s not up to 100 items yet, but it’s getting there. Many of the items have to do with being recommitted, and it’s a perfect time to post these given that this weekend is General Conference. It seems that Latter-day Saints have lots of opportunities to recommit themselves: New Year’s, General Conference, and even each Sunday as we take the Sacrament we recommit ourselves to following Jesus Christ. Here are a few of the goals I’m thinking about right now, each of which probably deserves its own blog post:

• Scripture reading
• Keeping up with my Spanish skills
• Fitness goals

There’s a lot more on my goals list, but these are the ones that are important to me right now. I don’t want to do too much while I’m just getting started, because it’s going to take a marathon effort to cross everything off my goals list!