I am so proud of my Aunt Anna!

For the past few decades she’s been lugging around a whole lot of excess weight that has left her feeling tired all the time. Plus just getting herself off the sofa and walking the ten steps to her kitchen counter would leave her huffing and puffing.

Then last October she received some disheartening news.

She was diagnosed as a borderline diabetic and saw herself facing a future filled with insulin injections and escalating health problems.

Oh, she had tried Weight Watchers, Atkins, Pritikin, South Beach and a whole host of other “diets” in the past, but she would just yo-yo up a few pounds and yo-yo down a few pounds over and over without any permanent changes. She’d get excited and motivated for each new diet fad but before long she’d find herself reverting back to her old eating habits.

But yesterday she was gushing to me over the phone about how she’s going to be allowed to run — RUN! — on the treadmill next week. She was thrilled to share that her trainers are increasing her resistance on the weight machines AGAIN. And she proudly reported that her blood pressure and cholesterol and heart rate are better than ever and that…

…she’s lost 55 pounds in the last nine months!

Oh, and did I mention that she’s 80 years old!!!

So what changed this time? What did she do different this time that she didn’t do the last few dozen times?

I noticed four things in particular that I know made a huge difference in my Aunt Anna’s success story. And they’re great reminders for all of us when we want to make significant changes to any area of our lives:

1. Know your Big WHY.

You’ve got to have an intense reason for making a big change — and it has to be intensely personal to you.

Just because people who love you and care about you would prefer you lose weight, study harder, stop smoking, or whatever usually isn’t enough of a reason to go through the pain of making such a big change.

But facing the prospect of losing a lung? Or losing a scholarship? Or not being able to fly to your child’s wedding or your grandchild’s graduation? Now we’re talking.

For Aunt Anna, this time the lifestyle changes weren’t about her slimming down a size or looking more attractive. It was about what her remaining days on this earth were going to look like and feel like.

So make sure your stakes are big for you. Super-size ’em!

Know you Big WHY.

2. Don’t do it alone.

No one can go it alone. If you are making a big change, embarking on a scary project or trying something totally new, it’s important to learn as much as possible as fast as possible and it sure helps to have a qualified coach in your corner.

That coach can be a teacher, a mentor, a friend or a family member, but I’ve found you usually get the best results if you have a little skin in the game. That’s right. HIRE someone to help you!

This is the first time my Aunt Anna hired a nutritionist and a fitness trainer to help her reach her goals.

Once she became accountable to them she couldn’t just tell herself a little fib about why she could eat that bowl of ice cream and get away with it. She couldn’t make bargains with herself and then re-negotiate the terms with herself later.

Nope, this time she had to answer to two other people whose job was to track her progress, cheer on her achievements and strategically reverse any setbacks.

I’ve long been a proponent of hiring the best help you can afford and I practice what I preach. Right now I’m plunging into unknown territory with this little solo show I’m undertaking and I wouldn’t dream of attempting to navigate these unknown waters without a Captain and a First Mate to guide me.

Now I personally prefer to take my budget and hire the absolute best experts I can. Yes, these folks also tend to be more pricey but I’d rather work with the best less frequently. That’s just a personal choice for me. The most important thing is that you enlist PROFESSIONAL qualified help in addition to the unconditional and free support of your family and friends.

3. What Gets Measured Gets Done

When in doubt, measure things out.

I don’t know what it is about the human psyche but we like numbers and we like to see VISUAL evidence of our progress.

For the first time, Aunt Anna kept track of everything — and I do mean EVERYTHING — that went in her mouth once she committed to changing her eating habits.

She didn’t just count calories. She kept a notebook where she noted fat calories, sodium, vitamin content, fiber grams and more. She kept track of the reps she did on the weight machines. She recorded her distance and time on the treadmill. And she focused not just on pounds lost but on inches lost and muscle gained.

But measurement applies to more than just diets.

For writers like myself, it comes down to tracking words written per day or hours of writing per day. For salespeople it could be cold calls made per day. For chefs, number of new recipes created per month.

You can also track what you DON’T DO.

Smokers can make a big red “X” on a calendar every day that they don’t have a cigarette, for instance.

Just figure out what you should track and then start visually tracking it!

4. If you believe you can, or you believe you can’t, you’re right.

I truly believe that we should ALWAYS be working on at least one thing that scares us. It could be about adding something new to our life (like learning a new skill, sport or language) or it could be about subtracting something (like smoking or an emotionally abusive boyfriend).

It’s only when we challenge ourselves that we can grow more fully into all that we’re capable of being.

Yes, it was darn scary for my Aunt Anna to commit to changing her diet and exercise habits after 80 years — especially considering that she had TRIED and FAILED multiple times in the past.

But she believed that this time could be different. And she was right.

This time she started by thinking differently.  You see, in the past,  she always started a new diet. This time she was CHANGING HER LIFESTYLE once and for all.

She painted a new picture in her head of what it would be like to get around without effort, to stop wheezing, to have more energy. She focused on these good outcomes rather than how hard it would be to give up the foods she loved or how awkward she’d feel as the oldest and heaviest woman at the gym.

By re-framing the story she was telling herself in her head, she was able to approach her challenge with a new attitude — and one that was much more likely to result in a positive outcome for her.

I am so inspired by her commitment to HERSELF and to her living example that it is NEVER, EVER(!) TOO LATE to change who you are into who you’d prefer to be.

As Stephen Covey used to say,

“Live out of your imagination, not your history.”

QUESTION: If YOUR life was on the line, what change would you commit to making in your life RIGHT NOW?