To which the pianist replied along this line, "No you wouldn't, because if you really wanted to play like me, you would have already given everything and you would play like me."

Kind of blunt and in-your-face, but a valid point.

Sure, almost every one of us has all kinds of commitments and obligations that serve as genuine and imagined obstacles to our dreams. We have kids to feed and raise, so we can't take off from work and write the great American novel. We have a mortgage, car payments, and there's last year's doctor's bills still unpaid, so we stay at the job we hate because it pays us enough to make the payments we obligated ourselves to, and the job we would "give anything" to have doesn't. In many cases, we simply do what we do because that's what we know how to do and we are afraid to go towards the unknown and try to put on a new kind of skin.

However, on the other side of the coin are all of those who HAVE achieved their dreams, and perhaps went beyond their dreams because they were willing and able to "do whatever was necessary", hopefully within reason, to get there.

So what does this have to do with weight loss?Well, losing weight is simply another goal like any other. Also, while there are those with genuine medical or clinical conditions which make almost any sort of standard weight loss program impossible, most humans can do the things necessary to accomplish their weight loss goal.

1. Most people don't really know what it is they are seeking.

3. And even if they knew 1 and 2, they would not be able to sustain the motivation to "give anything" to get there.

Normally, no one's plan is to deprive themselves of favorite foods and the accompanying festivities and social pleasures or to cause themselves repetitive physical pain, discomfort, and sweat simply for the goal of fitting into a dress one size smaller...at least not for any length of time. However, many of us would be more willing and able to endure all sorts of things if the prize were of genuine and lasting value to us.

Learning how exercise works, what the weight loss process is, how the human body functions, and how long it can realistically take to achieve our goal can help us over a lot of bumps along the way.

At the end, success often comes down to the willingness to persevere even when the going gets tough or the goal seems as unreachable as it did the day we started. Again, this is the value of knowing where we really are going and how we intend to get there. If the goal is the next smaller dress size, that might be more difficult to achieve than improving our health so that we can be a better employee, spouse, family member, coworker, or person. If the steps along the path are known, it becomes less important to keep watching the end than keeping an eye out for the next plateau.