?I'll start again on Monday.?

?I'm going out for a meal tonight, so there's no point trying to be good and eat healthily today.?

?Oh, it's Easter/my birthday/Christmas/holiday soon, so I'll start my diet again after that.?

Do any of the above sound familiar? Sometimes, even when we do want to lose weight, we can find it extremely difficult to motivate ourselves to do it. We start each day determined to be good and eat healthily, cutting down on all our usual treats? and sooner or later all our good intentions disappear as we head for the chocolate.

And as soon as we do that, we give up completely and tell ourselves we've failed, so we may as well eat what we like.

Sometimes, in order to achieve our ultimate weight loss goal, we need to take a different viewpoint. We need to break our goal down into much smaller (bite sized, if you will) sections. If we focus on each smaller section until it is achieved, we will find it much easier to cope, and we will stand a much better chance of reaching our goal weight.

This can be more easily done if you are completely honest with yourself and write down all your weaknesses on a piece of paper. For example, you may have a habit of always having a biscuit with your cup of tea. You may be good all day, but head for the chocolate during the evening. Try and pinpoint when your weak times are, and figure out a way to combat them.

Do you have a tendency to eat when you're bored? Maybe you could take up that new hobby you've been thinking about. If high stress levels send you towards the biscuit tin, work out some ways to de-stress your life. Finding a healthy substitute for those biscuits is all well and good, but it won't deal with whatever is causing you to feel stressed in the first place.

The real key to losing weight successfully is to identify your bad habits and work on replacing them with good ones. Set yourself one goal at a time, and work on making steady progress, rather than trying to achieve too much at once. If your goals are small and achievable, you will be much more motivated to reach them.

That will really help you on the road to a lighter weight.

About the author:

Allison Whitehead has published hundreds of articles on self-help subjects, and is the author of ?The 5 Secrets of Successful Goal Setting?, which reveals tips and tricks on reaching all your goals ? including losing weight. Download your free pdf preview today from http://www.lulu.com/smoo_publishing