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?
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