What Catching a Baseball With my Teeth Taught Me About Achieving Goals

As the nurse prepared to stitch my lip, I made a joke with my newly acquired lisp, “At least I’ll be able to lose my final 2 lbs.”

For the past few weeks, I had been trying to lose 2 lbs to arrive at my weight goal. 

As Thanksgiving approached, I had decided to release myself from my food protocol and prepared to brace myself for the inevitable weight bump.

Then on Thanksgiving Day, I caught a baseball with my teeth, jarring them loose. My brother-in-law took me to the emergency room. That’s where I made my joke to the nurse. 

Instead of feasting on turkey, dressing, and pumpkin pie, I drank a smoothie and slurped mashed potatoes. Not too bad because the smoothie was awesome, but still, it was a suboptimal experience.

The irony struck me when three days later, I weighed myself and discovered I had lost...precisely 2 lbs.

If you believe in silver linings outside of Totino’s microwavable pizzas, this feat was pretty cool. But it also reminded me that the glory is NOT found when we arrive at the destination--the goal--it’s during the journey itself. 

One of my original reasons to lose weight was to increase my agility on the tennis court. I coached myself to losing 15 lbs in 70 days. (The extra 2lbs above was an additional goal after this goal.) I could cover the court like my 18 year old self. And I admit to a bit of vanity when my partners complimented me on my slimmer appearance.

But the greater benefit was derived from all the lessons I picked up along the way. I wrote down five in my journal. Here’s an excerpt of #3: “It’s possible to look at food completely differently...Today, for the most part, I’m not tempted at all to eat fast food. I eat at the right time, I eat a lot less, and I'm able to forgo sweets and snacks.”

Can you see how powerful that is? Especially if you consider the junk food, fast food ways of my past. In fact, during each of those 70 days, I learned something valuable, especially when the scale went the wrong way. 

It’s these lessons that have the potential to transform you - that make you better. The goal gives you a yardstick by which you can measure yourself. But arriving “there” won’t make you any happier.

So, don’t try to make a goal at all costs. Don’t catch a baseball with your teeth. Remember the journey is what really matters. Enjoy it, and you’ll enjoy life.

The hospital's "get well" card.