I'm just a very bad wizard

I love old movies.

Love them.

Casablanca? Own it.

An Affair to Remember?

Cry every time.

The Way We Were?

Robert Redford as Hubble, swaying on that barstool with his sandy blonde hair....

But one of my all-time favorite movies is the Wizard of Oz. Maybe because I grew up without cable t.v. and it was a treat when the movie played around every holiday. (I also adore the Sound of Music).

I remember the dramatic effect of the movie turning from black and white to color because at the time and being mind-blown. 

Mind. Blown.

I watched the movie again over the Thanksgiving holiday for the first time in years, and at the end of the story, you'll recall that Dorothy yells at the poor old man when his wizard machine goes awry and his gig is up:

“You’re a very bad man!”

And he says to her:

“No, I’m a very good man. I'm just a very bad wizard.”

How true that is, for so many of us in so many endeavors. 

I feel this way a lot, and I’m not going to compare this only to fitness, though I think you can see where I’m headed.

You set out to do something (like maybe post three blogs a week...I don't know...) and then at the end of the week, realize that you've posted only twice, you fell short of your workout goal, you didn't follow your budget exactly to the letter. And you think, sometimes, what an awful person you are. 

We set out to do many things in our lives, or at least I hope we do. I hope we find the courage to start new endeavors. And we have high hopes and high expectations, as we should, when we set out on our yellow brick roads. (Might as well run with the analogy now...)

In the process of starting these new endeavors, and yes it might be joining a gym or starting a different nutrition approach, we sometimes fall short of our goals. It doesn’t mean, it never means, that we shouldn’t hold ourselves accountable. But I think it’s important to remember, especially when we are making big, sweeping changes in our lives, that when we do come up just a little bit short, that we are not bad people. 

We are very good people. 

But sometimes we’re very bad wizards.