Its not magic...
Tuesday, June 16, 2015
I remember, as a teenager and young adult, desperately wanting to be able to lose the extra weight once and for all...imagining that there was some magical place where, once that happened, I would be free...as if walking out of a prison of my own design and never having to look back. I imagined that if I could just GET THERE, everything would be fine...I would be worry free and in control for the rest of my life.
Of course I did know that was indeed magical thinking...and it did not get me any closer to my goal at all. I felt like I knew that the key to weight loss was not diets, but lifestyle change. But I also felt like that was a mysterious and illusive idea as well, like once I was able to "achieve" lifestyle change, I would be worry free and in control for the rest of my life.
One of the things I have learned about myself over the last 16 months is that FOR ME, lifestyle change is more about my approach to life than the specific actions I take each day. For instance...I approach life from the perspective of an ACTIVE person. That does not mean that I exercise perfectly. It does mean that I recognize the benefit to my body, mind and soul of movement and activity, and pursue it daily, to the best of my ability. Sometimes my best is not great...but THAT is not a reason to beat myself up. It is a reason to say, "Yep, life can get in the way...but I can keep steering this ship."
I expected FOR SO LONG that I would somehow be able to achieve perfection, that it was incredibly hard for me to accept that that expectation was the PRECISE thing that was getting in my way.
The longer I keep at this, the more I know that the length of the journey is as important to my success as ANY other tool I pick up along the way. The longer I face challenges, and KEEP steering my ship back on course, the stronger my skills become.