Anticipate then act

My first after school job was hostessing at a local steakhouse. It was your basic cafeteria style restaurant where you make your way down the line and carry your meal to the table on a tray. When I was hired I was pretty confident that I could do the job with my eyes closed. How hard could it be to greet the guests in my station, check in to see if their meals were prepared to their satisfaction and do a couple loops back to refill drinks. By my third week on the job I was quite satisfied with my performance, the job was a breeze. Even on the busiest of Saturday nights I found time to make the occasional pit stop in the kitchen to flirt with the cute dishwasher. But my arrogant attitude quickly changed when I received my first employee review.

Much to my shock and dismay, the manager assigned to review my work performance didn't quite agree with my assessment of the quality of my work. In so many words he told me that while I wasn't a slacker I was missing the ability to anticipate what the customer might need to make his or her visit more pleasant. He gave me a few examples. For instance, he suggested that sometimes guests are enjoying a conversation and let their coffee get cold before consuming even a quarter cup. An exceptional hostess would notice that her guests had been sitting for 20 minutes without a warm up and offer to bring a couple fresh cups. When families with small children arrived I should automatically bring extra napkins for the inevitable blobs of ketchup that needed to be wiped from little faces. It was a humbling experience, but his constructive criticism taught me that providing a guest with an excellent experience is a function of how much you anticipate their needs.

Let me explain why I shared this anecdote. The scenario that happened to my 17-year-old self is a good analogy for how we can achieve success in our efforts to arrive at a healthy weight, progress in our level of fitness or develop healthy eating habits by anticipating situations that might lead to a less than optimal outcome and being prepared to act. Let's say that your goal for losing weight in 2012 hinges on your ability to workout five evenings a week and prepare all of your meals at home instead of relying on take out, have you considered how you'll stick to the goals if you have to work late or will be out of town for business or pleasure? What measures will you take to succeed when you're invited to a party where the menu might not include many healthy options? How would you manage fitness if you twisted your ankle and couldn't get in a power walk or jog?

When you commit to changing some aspect of your lifestyle you have to be prepared for the unexpected. Resolving to eat healthier and move more often may prove to be easier said than done. After all, life has a way of throwing a monkey wrench into even the best plans. The good news is that taking a proactive approach to avoid minor roadblocks along the way gets easier the longer you're traveling on a path to a healthy lifestyle. You begin to come up with solutions the more often you encounter a situation that interrupts your routine. You learn that keeping the pantry stocked with the fixings for some simple dishes to take to parties will help you avoid the chili cheese dip at the Super Bowl party. You keep an eye on the class schedules at the gym to see if you can fit in a morning workout to make up for the one you missed the night before. You buy a set of light weight exercise bands for tossing in a suitcase in the event that a last minute trip pops up.

Inevitably there will be situations that arise that will challenge your desire to eat right or get enough activity into your day. The degree of success you achieve in your efforts to make lifestyle changes is proportional to the thought you put into preparing for the unexpected.