In this instant-gratification world, we all want what we want, and we want it right now! We don’t want to wait for a slow internet connection and we want to lose all our weight by this weekend, please, if not yesterday.

That’s why plans like ‘drop a dress size by Friday’ and ‘lose XX pounds in XX days’ are so popular. We want the bad bit to be done. We want to be at the good bit, where life is perfect and we live happily ever after. Of course!

It’s just, if those plans worked, we’d all be slim and trim, right?

But we aren’t, and so many of us struggle to keep going with diets and exercise plans. Being thrown in the deep end – deprived of favourite foods and undertaking punishing exercise regimes that fall almost out of reach of our soft bodies (and soft minds) – is pretty much a recipe for disaster, for quitting and failing. Failing (for most of us failing again) only makes us feel hopeless and pathetic – not a great way for approaching any new attempt with confidence!

So maybe we need a different approach. I’ve said it before: starting small can be the answer. Small changes are easier to incorporate into your life, and you get quick wins, which build your faith in your own abilities.

I read a great post this morning, from Zen Habits. Leo sets out a plan of levels to follow to lose weight and get fit. His idea is that you need to make changes so easy, so small that it’s almost impossible to fail. And you don’t skip levels just because you think it sounds too easy – you build your skills for being able to stick with it by starting there. It worked like a charm for him – check it out!

Now even if you don’t want to follow Leo’s plan, take some time to think about the concept behind it. We all want to lose 10 pounds a week, but what if, at the end of the year, we could have lost some, and have some new great habits to keep getting healthier long term, wouldn’t that be great?

Rather than ‘trying’ and ‘failing’ three more times?? It’s the failure that’s the killer, making it so much harder for us to believe in ourselves and our ability to change next time. So, slower than we’d like, sure, but with success.

Leo says: “Levelling up isn’t easy if you’re impatient, but it’s the smartest way to change, and it works.”

Impatience. That’s the problem. We want it now. But what if we let go of our timeframe expectations and embraced a ‘slow and steady wins the race’ philosophy instead?

Change your expectations, you just might change your life.