Feedback

Feedback

Posted: 19 May 2011 02:44 AM PDT

I love feedback!  (or maybe not all feedback -- maybe it's just the positive feedback I love) 

I love your comments on my posts.  I like to hear that people are enjoying/understanding/applying what they read...etc.  Sometimes, when I get negative comments...or no comments, I wonder if I should keep posting -- because maybe what I'm doing doesn't really matter.....

***Now, before you get the feeling that this post is all about drumming up comments, stick with me for a minute because that is totally not where I'm headed here***

My whole purpose in starting this blog  was to start a conversation about Mindful Eating.  It didn't seem like anyone was talking about it and I wanted to change that!  I decided that blogging would be the perfect tool to start and maintain that conversation.  And that the comments I received on the blog would be the perfect tool to measure how successful the blog was.

Here's what I learn though:

These posts are emailed out all across the world.

Lots of people visit this site daily.

I have people I would never expect to like my subject matter tell me they enjoy reading the blog.

I hardly ever get comments.

And my seeming lack of success almost made me quit.

If I hadn't, at some point, redefined how I measured the blog's success, I would have quit writing and considered my experiment an abject failure.  I didn't meet my goals (making a million dollars, going viral, having a parade in my honor because I am such a weight management genius....)

Right before I got so frustrated and crabby because I wasn't getting the feedback I set my sights on, I realized that comments aren't the measure of how this blog is impacting the world. --- I had to change my measure of success.

Is it enough to be able to feel good about my accomplishment?  Sure, maybe I can't take my comment numbers and throw them into the faces of the doubter's that didn't support this endeavor.  But at the end of the day, can I feel good about the work I have done?

And that is the question I am going to put to you:

How are you measuring your success?  Is it just the scale?  And what happens if that scale doesn't budge -- do you lose heart and fall off the mindfulness wagon?  (or worse, binge because "what's the point?") 

Or can it be enough to feel good about accomplishing the mindfulness you are able to cultivate.  To know that you are doing good for your body each and every time you chose to stop eating when you are no longer hungry or to eat when you feel they physical sensation of hunger?

Can you be patient through the times when your scale doesn't budge knowing that eventually all those little decisions will add up and you will get the feedback you're looking for???