The first thing I did was go to Staples and buy some things to get organized. I take my kids to the store every year before school starts to get them school supplies. Why? So they have everything they need when it comes time to start school. The same approach is more than useful -it is necessary, if you want to transform behaviors that were making you a fat slob into behaviors that are going to make you fit and healthy.

So what did I get at Staples? Nothing earth-shattering for sure. Just some basic supplies.

* Three-ring binder,

* Pencil holder to put inside binder,

* 8-tab 3-ring binder tabs,

* mechanical pencils,

* pens,

* 3-holed pre-punched printer paper,

* a hard-cover journal, and

* ink for my printer

So here's what I did. Before I even started over to Staples, I sat down at my computer and wrote down a plan for taking charge of my physical health. One of the first things in the plan was to create a *system* that would help me get on track. The first part of the system is to create a "Development" binder to keep track of the printed plans. So far this isn't rocket science, right?

But here is a key distinction about losing weight and getting healthy that most people miss. Your health and weight loss is a part of your life that's connected to everything else in your life. In other words, many people fail to lose weight and keep it off because they compartmentalize their weight loss program into a little box and then they keep the rest of their lives the same as before. Sorry, but this rarely, if ever, is going to work short-term or long-term.

So what I did was create major categories for my life. These categories are meant to be like file folders that ANYTHING in my life can fit into. In other words, if I have something going on in my life, it will be placed into one of these categories. Or more importantly, any outcomes or goals I create for myself will fit into one of these categories.

Now what's so important about doing this is realizing that all the areas of your life fit together and depend on each other. The secret is to get the areas working with each other as opposed to against each other. For example, if your goal is to lose weight it would be helpful that your job wasn't stressing you out and influencing you into eating fast food on the run every day. Or maybe you want to lose weight but whenever you visit your mother she makes lasagne and apple pie for you. Or maybe you have friends you meet for coffee at Starbuck's and you sit around drinking venti pumpkin spice latte's three or four times a week. You see, if you set a goal in one area like health and fitness, and then you don't change what you're doing in other areas, it's going to be 10 times harder to lose weight.

So here are the categories I created:

Health and Fitness

Emotional Mastery

Be a Great Dad

Family Togetherness

Empowering Friendships

Financial Freedom

Awesome Environment

Spiritual Purpose

I then got out my binder tabs and printed these category names on Avery labels using Microsoft Word. It's really easy. Just get the tabs and go to the Avery website or Microsoft site and you can get templates or software to print the tabs. I put the tabs into my "Development" binder. I then printed the weight loss plan I typed up and put it into the binder in the Health and Fitness tab.

Why did I do all this? Because now I have a planning binder for my whole life that I can go to quickly and easily to get me focused on the most important actions I need to take everyday, as well as why it's a MUST to achiece the outcomes I've decided on for myself. This not only got me organized and focused, it helped create momentum that will carry me forward to achieve my goals. Seriously, after going to all this trouble, do you think I'm going to just put the binder next to my bed and forget about it? No way! I'm going to follow through and use the binder to store plans I will create for the other areas of my life. In a very short time, I'll have 8 master plans, one for each area of my life, that will be creating an overall synergy to drive me forward.

Now don't you think this will give me a better chance to lose weight than going on a diet and ordering some gimmicky exercise device from a late-night infomercal???