Who Are you Doing this for?
It’s amazing to me how sometimes you come up with one thought, and in speaking about it, it snowballs into a million different ideas.
Every week I meet with my team to discuss our goals, for the year, month, and week. Of course as it was my turn, and my weight loss goal came up, I got a little nervous. (Stay tuned for tomorrow’s blog which goes into that topic more). In explaining why I am changing my weight loss goals etc, a HUGE light bulb went off in my head. Maybe one of the reasons, in 32 years I haven’t met my weight loss goals is because I was doing it for the wrong reason….or for the wrong people.
When I was a kid, I dieted because, well, I was told to. As I got older it was because I didn’t want other people to make fun of me, as I got older still, I just wanted to be pretty. I was tired of hearing, “You’d be so pretty if you were thinner.” After my Mom died, I wanted to make her proud, and I wanted to make my sisters proud. I wanted to stop hearing “you need to get your weight under control”, especially from people who have no understanding of what it is like to have a weight problem, or medical conditions that lie below the surface which complicate the whole process. At 32, I’m back to just wanting to be able to be thin for my next trip to Cancun, to please my sisters, and to please society who thinks it’s a must to be thin and pretty. Finally, I tell myself it’s because I just want to have a baby. (Knowing that if that were true, I would be thin already).
So it brings me to this… in my review of all the reasons I “wanted” to lose weight in my lifetime, it was never for myself. I know this, because I have actually fought the idea of having to lose weight in order for people to accept me. I feel that people should accept me for me, thin, fat, tall, short, whatever.
Isn’t this something we all do on some level? How many of us go to college right out of high school because it’s what our parents want us to do? More importantly, were we as successful in college as we would have been, had we gone because it was something we really wanted to do?
What if we took the time to really look inside ourselves and decide what WE want, and reach for those goals? Would we be more successful at the things we attempt if we did them because it was something we truly desired rather than trying to please other people? And really, what is the benefit of pleasing other people so much? Wouldn’t it be more valuable to our lives and purposes to fulfill our needs, rather than other peoples’ desires? In the end it is our life that is effected, therefore, isn’t it our own life and purpose we should worry about fulfilling rather than someone else’s vision for us?
“Always be a first-rate version of yourself, instead of a second-rate version of somebody else. ”
Also….don’t forget to check out my friend David’s blog as well. We have both committed to blogging together three times a week.
Stop Worrying About Everyone Else and Worry about Yourself
I have to say that I am truly blessed to be surrounded and supported by some very amazing people. There are very few people in this world who are not afraid to call me out on my crap, this is the quality I think I cherish most in both Kevin & Fred (they’re my “bosses”, if you didn’t already know that).
Every week we have an accountability meeting, in which we discuss not only my job goals, but my personal and personal financial as well. I decided to take an item off my personal goals because I didn’t feel like I had time to really dedicate the time to doing it, even though I feel it is something that I need to do, and would benefit tremendously from.
Well, of course they both questioned me as to why I took it off, and I was asked if rather than stop doing it completely, wouldn’t it be more beneficial to at least do it part of the way. Of course I made my excuses as to why that wouldn’t work, and OF COURSE, they called me out on it. Said I don’t finish anything I start (for myself). This is SO true, I don’t. In fact I was thinking about it the other night, actually I think about it quite often. Aside from career goals, I have not completed many of the things I have set out to do over the course of my life. I beat myself up about that one constantly, and in my conversation with Kevin & Fred a lot of it became clear for me.
I have a habit of putting other people before myself, I always have been that way. Kevin opened my eyes by sharing with me something Rick Geha said at a class last week, basically stating that by not taking care of myself, how can I really take care of and give to others….. Wow, that’s deep stuff. Wait it gets so much better… He went on to say that if I want children, do I really want to teach them that other people’s needs are more important than their own, because despite what we tell our kids, they do as we do. No for me that was an EXTREMELY smart tactic, knowing how much I want children. (Those guys know me too well!) It also really made me think about my Mom, that’s the person she was, her whole entire life she always put other people before herself, even though she used to say “Stop worrying about everyone else, and worry about yourself.” I truly am I my mother’s daughter, which by the way I couldn’t be prouder of. But as much as I thought I had broken most of the bad cycles I grew up with, this is one that I had never considered.
So, needless to say the spiritual/self development goal that I had taken off my goal sheet is of course back on. I could never begin to describe how grateful I am to have Kevin and Fred in my life, who always force me to see another side of things, and get out of my own way. I’m blessed to have two people who want better things for me than I want for myself.
That being said, how many times have you given up on a goal or dream because someone else’s was more important? If that person really cares about you, do you think that is truly what they would want for you? Better yet, why do we so often see ourselves as less important that those around us? Chances are, they don’t think we are less important.
I believe it’s true that if we don’t take care of ourselves, we can’t truly give of ourselves to others. So who are we hurting and/or helping by treating ourselves poorly?
Expectations
I was having a brief conversation earlier with a very good friend of mine about the fact that we both have “high expectations of people.” (We’re both Virgos, so it’s very much a trait of ours naturally). I’m not going to go all into expectations in general, but I do feel the need to discus expectations of how we are treated. Now, I personally don’t think I do have high expectations of other people, nor do I think I should ever have to lower my expectations (even thought I believe we all tend to all too often) I expect people to be kind to others, honest, straight-forward, respectful, to communicate with me and most importantly do what they say they are going to do. Really, I am an extremely easy person to please, and those little things bring a smile to my face.
For example, I think that someone telling you that they are going to call you means that they should call you, or at least text you. I don’t think it’s a lot to ask, even for a text to say, hey, I’m really busy, I’ll call you when I can. That took a whole what, 5 seconds? People not doing what they say they are going to do has been something that has really bothered me for a long time. I think it shows a complete lack of respect for the other person. I do believe that there are absolutely times where things come up. For example (and this is just an example), you make tentative plans with someone one day around 12:00. The day comes and you haven’t heard anything, so you send a text, “hey, are we still going to do….(whatever your plans were)?” and they don’t respond. Uh….HELLO? The problem here isn’t that the person couldn’t make it, the problem here is that they person couldn’t pick up the phone and call, or text, or send an email, or a facebook message…I mean come on, it’s 2010 there are 500 million ways to communicate with someone, without even having to talk to them. So that’s a high expectation? I should lower my expectation, so I get worse results the next time? I think not!
They say “Expect the worst, and hope for the best.” I used to do that, and now I worry that if I am expecting bad things, bad things will happen (it’s the whole putting positive things out to the Universe thing), but if I expect people to meet my expectations, and they don’t, I end up hurt. It’s a huge catch 22.
I think that if you truly respect yourself, you should have high expectations of how people treat you. If you don’t, you’re settling for less than you deserve. The trick is having those high expectations, and if someone disappoints, you don’t allow them to do it again. Settling for less than we deserve is not what we are put on this earth to do, especially when it comes to how people treat us.
By not doing what you say you are going to do is discounting the other person’s feelings, disrespectful of their feelings, and quite honestly showing the person that you think they are unimportant. You are also setting the expectation for that person to think that you are unreliable and that you will probably fail them again…. Especially someone who isn’t very trusting to begin with. Again, life happens, but that’s what communication is for. It’s one thing to not be able to do something you said you were going to do, it’s just inexcusable to not take the time to tell them you aren’t going to follow through.
There you have it. I know that I only covered one little thing about the things we expect, but I truly believe that if you begin lowering your expectations of people, people will continue think they have to do less to meet your expectations. That’s just my take on it. . . Do what you say you are going to do, and if you aren’t able, have some respect and tell the other people involved.
Competing with Myself
A competing commitment is what stops us from doing the things we say we want to do, or having the things we want to have. Every day, there are things we say we want, but based on our actions, we see there is something we want more. For example, I could say that I want to lose 100 pounds, but clearly, based on results, I would rather eat carbs in excessive amounts. Now, I’m using that as an example, only because I think it’s pretty easy for most people to understand, and likely relate to. These things come up in our lives all the time, and if we look closely, we can see the fight inside our own minds, or worse, you never see it.
So what happens, when it feels like these Competing Commitments take over, and it feels like your competing with your own self. Where do you begin, when there are so many things that you SAY you want for yourself, but you like the decisions that you unconsciously, or likely, subconsciously make sabotage those things? Sometimes I think that once you hit adulthood you turn on autopilot and do the things you “have” to do to make it through life, and then all of the sudden, years down the road you realize that nothing that you are doing is what you want to do or think that you should be doing, but have to in order to survive. I often wonder how many people just wake up one morning and ask themselves how they got where they are, and at what age they wake up to that question.
What is it that stops us, once we realize that we aren’t the people we want to be, or living the lives we think we should be, from making the changes necessary to move toward that goal? Is it fear, fear because, even though we may not be where we want to be, at least we know what to expect, and although we may not be completely happy, at least we’re comfortable? Is it fear that when we become the person we think we are meant to be, or make the changes we need to make, that people will think differently of us? Do we search and search and search for the path we are meant to be on, only to come across a rock in the path and turn around?
I believe that we all come to a crossroads at some point in our life, maybe more than one. The question is, do we move forward on our current path, or decide to turn down a different one. And if we choose to turn down a different path, will we be leaving people behind, or will they walk that walk with us (or at least visit us every now and then)?
Life is a bunch of questions, obviously. Clearly, I am at one of those crossroads, in so many aspects of my life. I can say honestly, that although it is exciting in a way, at many points the fear is overwhelming, and the doubt takes over, and it kind of feels like every time I make it through one of the impasses, another once comes along just a few steps away. And really…. I just wonder what my Mom’s words of wisdom would reveal.
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