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This morning, I want to give you the meeting summary from my Weight Watchers meeting on Saturday, April 7, 2012.

Tools for Living - Anchoring 

When sticking to the plan is tough, that's when you need Anchoring, a process for creating cues and triggers to remind yourself of your weight goal and the inner resources you have to achieve it.

You use Anchoring every day. When you hear a song that makes you smile because you associate it with a certain memory, that's an anchor to that memory.

Anchoring can help you achieve your Winning Outcome by reminding you of a particular inner resource you may need to connect to when you're having a hard time.

Ann's Anchor
When Ann needs to be reminded of her strongest inner resource, she anchors herself to the day her son was born. She reconnects to that day because it reminds her of the love she felt for herself and the pride she felt in her future. To help get back to those feelings, she keeps her son's diaper pin attached to her daily planner. Ann touches it or looks at it whenever she's hit a rough patch in her plan.

Now create your own anchor with these steps:
1. Identify the inner resource you need to respond the way you want.

2. Remember a time when you had that inner resource. Think about the circumstances that surrounded you. See what you saw, hear what you heard and feel what you felt at that time.

3. Choose an anchor that will bring you back to that time in an instant — a mental picture, a word, a gesture or an object.

4. Then, remember again that time when you had that strong inner resource. When the feeling you had then is strong within you, connect it to your Anchor.

5. Use your Anchor by itself. Did it work? Are you in touch with your resource? If not, keep repeating Step 4 until your Anchor grounds you when times are rough.

Common anchors include, belts, old pairs of “before” pants, skinny/heavy old pictures, your 10% keychain, maybe even your collarbone (who knew that thing was there?)

Here are some great sayings to keep posted around or to recite for encouragement. These were shared by online members of the etools community!

“Steady and slow, learn as you go. Lose too fast, it may not last.” — Louise F
“It matters not how slowly you go, only that you do not stop.” — Julia B
“No matter how slow you go, you’re still lapping the [person] sitting on the couch.” — Stephanie H
“I may not be where I want to be, but I’m better than where I was.” — Heather J
“You don’t drown from falling in the water, you only drown if you stay there.” — Barb L
“Success requires backbone, not wishbone.” —Debbie S
“If we defend our habits, we have no intentions of breaking them.” — Judy P
“Life has no remote…YOU have to get up and change it yourself!” — Tracy S
“The weight didn’t arrive from the Fat Fairy last night, and the Skinny Fairy isn’t coming tonight, either.” — Miscelena1
“Instead of a plate, reach for your mate!” — Frank E
“What you eat in private shows up in public!” — NicoleJuner1
“I’ve come too far to take orders from a cookie.” — Gina L
“If you kinda do it, it kinda works. If you really do it, it really works.” — Andrea G., Carol T
“If you’re driving and you get a flat tire, do you get out of the car and slash the other three? No, you fix it and get back on the road.” — Tanya S
“The scale is a weight loss tool – not a judge, jury and executioner.” — Brenda T
“Keep tracking, stop slacking!” — Holly L