Earlier in the year I started working on my personal Flywheel journey. You can read about it here.

Since then I’ve had a number of set-backs both in health and in motivation. After the great success I achieved from my 30 Day Journey I almost immediately started down a death spiral of reverting to the behaviours I thought I had overcome. Five months later and all the progress I had made, the weight loss, the strength gains and the confidence had all disappeared. Left behind was the knowledge that I did actually achieve something, and could probably do it again if I could just find the motivation. But how to move forwards?

So I started reviewing my personal Hedgehog concept and Flywheel. 

                        Hedgehog Concept                                                          Flywheel

Did I still believe these things to be true? Was I still on board with pushing the Flywheel?

Despite everything, the answer was still a resounding Yes. The problem I have had in the past was failing to realise that the Flywheel is big, heavy and almost impossible to move in the beginning. It requires, small focused and incremental effort.

The success I achieved earlier in the year required so much effort that although I moved the Flywheel significantly at first, I couldn’t sustain it and effectively collapsed, breathless and exhausted, unable to move it all for months afterwards. Every once in a while I would get up, try to put in the same amount of effort, but was able to sustain it for less and less time after each attempt. Eventually, I ended up further back than when I started, crushed by my own Flywheel, disappointed and feeling like a failure.

Lesson learned. The flywheel is too big to push quickly. Radical efforts lead to failure and being pushed backwards.

So now I have made two changes to my approach.

1. Big Hairy Audacious Goals (BHAGs)

I have used my hedgehog concept to help me develop Big Hairy Audacious Goals that I can work on achieving over time. These goals are challenging, outside of my current abilities and will require me to exercise consistently and eat healthy most of the time if I am to achieve them. The goals have nothing to do with specific weights or measurements. They focus on the development of abilities and skills that I have always wanted to have, making the achievement of the goals an attractive prospect.

2. Sustainable Forward Plan

I have come up with a healthy eating and workout plan that I am pretty sure is sustainable in the long term. The plan requires me to work hard but not so hard that I will quit within a few days. The plan also focuses on those activities that will move me towards the achievement of my BHAGs. 

After so many months of feeling stuck in the rut left behind by a motionless Flywheel I am finally in a place where I can see not only a positive and effective way forwards but also myself achieving some amazing personal goals. It’s a motivating thing. Stay tuned to see if I can get this Flywheel moving again.

Published by the lean minimalist

Donna Sherriff is a New Zealand based improvement and operations management specialist. Seeing a need for simple, no fuss, improvement advice she started The Lean Minimalist blog in 2017. Donna writes articles offering advice and tips for rapid and sustainable business improvement based on over 15 years in Senior Management roles. Passionate about sharing the lessons of over 20 years on the high performance track Donna offers coaching services to professionals. She also writes about her own personal improvement journey, minimalism, and her life long struggle against the tyranny of cookies and sugar which she overcame in 2020. These days, Donna is pursuing a journey to earn her black belt in Taekwondo after a long hiatus of 16 years away from training. On the side she is an amateur but passionate musician and poet. View all posts by the lean minimalist