The key to change… is to let go of fear
I think its natural to have a fear of change, I’m pretty sure every person has experienced it at least once in life.
In my last post I had mentioned that I have been re-evaluating my life and that I felt it was time to stop waiting for life to happen. Well I have taken the first step. I have officially given my notice at my job in order to start my own business. While it was something that I was waiting for until I had the amount of money I felt like I needed as a cushion, I also felt like I would never have that money. Not that the money wouldn’t come to me, but you know, you save money, then something in the car or house breaks and the money is gone. Its like people who say they want kids but they are waiting until the right time…Its waiting until the right time that forces life to pass you by.
I realize that while I have overcome a lot of things in life, but I have also allowed fear to stop me from doing a lot.
Starting my own Transaction Management business is something that I have been wanting to do for several years, but I had been waiting for the right time. Well I have made the right time today. I know that I am good at what I do, and I know I will be successful. Sure there may be a few months that I will struggle, but the truth is I will most likely be very successful. Even if I’m not, at least I’ll know that I tried.
The more I think about it, the more I things I think about that fears stop us from doing. Changing jobs, starting businesses for fear of failure, those are common. Then there are those of us who never tell the person we love that we love them because we are afraid they won’t feel the same way. We are hesitant to start a relationship because we are afraid it will fail or that we will lose the friendship we have with that person. We don’t buy a house because we are afraid we won’t be able to afford it. We put of having children because we think maybe we can’t afford it, or that we won’t be good enough parent.
But maybe it isn’t always about the fear of failure or the fear that we can’t afford something, or that we aren’t good enough. Maybe we have other fears, the fear that our new business will actually be successful. The fear that we don’t deserve that success,or that we don’t deserve that new house, or worse that we don’t deserve the unconditional love of a relationship or a child.
Here’s the thing, if we don’t overcome those fears, there can be no change, and without change there can be now growth. The sad truth is but not telling the people we love that we love them, or taking a chance on that relationship, or new job or having that child we always wanted we miss the moment, a moment we most likely will never get back.
In the last year I have told someone I was in love with them…and no they didn’t feel the same way… but I’m still here, I survived. I held a baby for the first time since I miscarried 13 years ago, something I refused to do in the past because I was afraid I couldn’t handle it. I left a job with people that I adored to take less money, I now gave my notice to start my own business. I’ve said things to people that I was afraid would make them hate me, but they didn’t because they knew where my heart was. Sure the fear is still there, its something that will always be in the back of our heads, it just a part of life. But the truth is that fear is nothing but an illusion, even an excuse not to challenge ourselves. We get comfortable where we are and every change scares us. Changes and choices we make may hurt more than others. However, those choices and changes, and overcoming fears are growth, regardless of the outcome. If we aren’t growing, can we even say that we are living?
If I have learned nothing else this week, I have learned that life is entirely to short to wait for great things to come to us, life is too short to not take the risk to make a change, or to say the things we are afraid to say. Tomorrow is NOT promised, we have all heard that, we all know it logically. Sadly though, it sometimes takes the loss of a friend to really remind us and make us understand it. While I can say I don’t have any words left unsaid with the people I care about, I know I have a lot of changes to make to fulfill my dreams.
What fears are you willing to overcome to have the life you deserve? What change are you willing to make to ensure that life doesn’t just pass you by? What words that need to be said are you willing to say before you never get a chance to say them?
My regret is that it took the loss of an amazing man this week to remind me of these things that I already knew. Rest in Peace David Horton.
My Name is Heather and I am an Obsessive . . .
Hi, my name is Heather, and I am an Compulsive Overeater, not to mention an OBSESSIVE DIETER. Oh yes I am, and I will be the first to admit it. I mentioned in yesterday’s blog that I would go more into the weight thing, and I really do want to share some of the revelations that I had yesterday.
I should go back, back to the age of 11 or so, when I did Weight Watchers for the first time. Lost 20 pounds, never made it further than that. Then of course for the next 21 years of my life, I tried every Fad diet out there. Phen Fen, when I was 18, dropped 80 pounds, best invention ever….until it started blowing up peoples’ hearts. Of course I gained back the 80 pounds, probably over a course of 2 years (which by the way is still the record for the longest I have kept weight off). Then it was Atkins, The Cabbage Soup Diet, South Beach, the Zone, Weight Watchers (7 more times), The Fat Smash Diet (I really did think that Dr. Ian from Celebrity Fit Club was my answer), Low fat here, no carb there, I even tried out for the Biggest Loser, you get the point.
In June of 2008, I started Medifast, I swore this was the next best thing (after Phen Fen of course). I dropped 55 pounds in just about 2 1/2 months. 5 Pre-packaged meals a day (meaning bars, soups or shakes) plus one no carb, “normal” meal, averaging about 750-800 calories a day. I did really well on it for a while, until the holidays came around, and I ate a piece of bread and my world went to hell. Then the severe pain…. Great, I lost 55 pounds, gained 40 of it back in a matter of 6 months, and now, well now I have shot out my Gall Bladder, who needs a Gall Bladder anyway? The Gall Bladder has to go, it’s preventing me from eating meat, which is the only thing I can really eat, since I can’t eat carbs right? Bye bye Gall Bladder, Hello second try at Medifast….then third…and well let’s just say as of 2 weeks ago I was on try number 7.
Here is my point, look at these “diets” we go on. Now let’s be clear, ANY diet will work, if you follow it, we all know that right, and I’m not trying to bash Medifast, or any other diet for that matter? It’s a matter of what we can and are willing to do to lose weight. Why are so many of us willing to inject our body with hormones, swallow pills to speed us up, teas to help us sleep, eat nothing but cabbage soup for a week, deprive our body of carbs, or fats, or any other thing, when we know that once we go back to “normal” our world will likely come crashing down again.
I realized last week that all I really wanted was a banana, and I “couldn’t” have one. Who is actually okay telling themselves that is OK to deprive ourself of something like a banana?? I must be completely crazy. All this time, I have been an extremely firm believer that so much disease that we have in our world is due to the processed food and chemicals we put in our body (because I know that back in the day when we were eating off the land we didn’t have all this disease), and here I am eating “packaged bars” 5 times a day, which are absolutely full or chemicals and preservatives, and DEPRIVING my body of the things that God put here for me to feed not only my body, but my soul, like Fruits and Corn, Nuts, and Milk, I mean really, can a girl just get a glass of 1% milk every now and then?
All of this has been an extreme whirlwind of Ah-Has for me in the last 24 hours. Aside from the fact that we fill our bodies with these toxins, we feed our MIND with toxins and make ourselves believe it’s going to be ok to do this. We actually tell ourselves, if I can just do this for 5 months, and drop 100 pounds my world will all of the sudden be ok. I got news for you….you’re dead wrong. There are a trillion ways to lose weight….keeping it off is the hard part. And how many times have you been completely devastated after depriving yourself for a year to fit into a hot dress……only to gain it all back in 1/3 of the time it took you lose it. Why isn’t that telling us something?
What would happen if we fed our bodies with more natural foods, ate when we were hungry, and actually gave into our cravings? Perfect example…I’m craving a piece of chocolate, ah yes, a Hershey’s Kiss will satisfy me (26 calories, by the way)….. Well it would have, but I have been craving chocolate now for 3 weeks, and the straw just broke my back and I’m going to go home and eat an entire bag of oreos……How did that work out for ya? Our bodies crave certain foods because our bodies are trying to tell us we’re lacking something. What if for just a little while we stopped stepping on the scale, and examining our fat rolls in the mirror, and ignored the media…and started listening to our bodies???
Well stay tuned, because that is what I have decided to do. And maybe that means losing a pound every 3 weeks, but maybe it means my body finally being content with what it is given. Maybe it means being okay with not fitting into the mold that society has made for me….Maybe it doesn’t mean a thinner me, but it means a healthier me?
“My definition of success is total self acceptance. We can obtain all of the material possessions we desire quite easily, however, attempting to change our deepest thoughts and learning to love ourselves is a monumental challenge.”
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?
Follow Me