Hide & Seek

Why is it that when I make observations regarding goals, any progress I made is scared back into hiding?
I lost 7 pounds. You might hate me for this, but I wasn’t trying that hard. But don’t hate me too much because I’m sure to find them again. I don’t mind finding my keys, or last year’s mittens, but those pounds don’t seem to understand that I’d be perfectly happy if they stayed lost. Now that I’ve noticed my progress, they are sure to find their way back to me.
Same thing happens with writing. I’ve been hiatus for a while & I’m working on getting back into the flow. The initial burst of energy thrilled me. Now that I’ve observed how much I can accomplish in just a couple weeks, my initiative has practically vanished. Just getting a query letter out has become a multi-round prize fight. The email address is no good, the printer runs out of ink, the stamps go into hiding (maybe they’ve seen my goals somewhere).
So I find what I want to lose & I lose what I want to find. Sometimes it seems like progress is just an elusive kid playing hide & seek. Other times, progress runs for dear life, grabbing initiative and goals & taking them into a mysterious cave to escape the evil one who would dare notice anything resembling growth or improvement.
Despite this backwards state of affairs, the only strategy I’ve come up with is to employ further observation. Maybe if I can scare it into hiding, I can scare it back out again.
Perhaps I should just take solace in knowing that the first shall be last and the last shall be first.