You know what’s terrifying and hard…change!
Until…
“The pain of staying the same has to become greater than the pain of change”
For a long time I feared change. I still don’t like it. I convince myself that I’m comfortable where I’m at. “Things aren’t that bad”. This rings true in my relationship with God, my marriage, parenting, finances….everything.
Before I decided to change for the better, I couldn’t stop hating how I felt. I hated the way I looked in my clothes, I hated pictures of myself. I would go buy myself new clothes and couldn’t bear to buy a size 16 so I would grab the 12 and convince myself it would fit. The reality was that they wouldn’t. I was lying to myself about the reality of where I was at. I had settled for “things aren’t that bad.”
You might be thinking, “I’m a size 16. Is she saying I am not good enough?” No, I’m not. This is my story and it shouldn’t reflect your story. We are different people. Just had to get that out of the way…?
I didn’t change until one day I became
so sick of thinking how much I didn’t like myself. It became uncomfortable enough that I needed to change. I thought about my weight ALL OF THE TIME. It was exhausting. I wanted to have more energy, I didn’t want to deal with my guilty binges, I wanted to feel good in clothes and be a disciplined person. I knew it was time to face these demons that I had ignored for so long.
This is when change began.
I let go of all the excuses as to why I couldn’t go to the gym. There were a lot. I signed up for something hard that I would need to work for. I changed my eating habits and became more aware of what I was putting in my body without restriction. I asked for help from some coaches to help me and keep me accountable.
The hardest part was the sticking it out in the beginning when I felt like I wasn’t improving. That’s when the old Kate would quit. I shut out the negative self talk and kept doing what I could. It took a long time, but finally my body, performance, and mindset began to change. Picture after picture was real evidence that old Kate was wrong. Every goal met came a new goal to meet. Every challenge was uncomfortable, but I realized leaning into the discomfort was how I would succeed. The challenges started to motivate me. “Can I actually do it?” turned into I AM DOING IT!
My health and fitness led me to start my own business last year. I would never have thought in a million years that I could do something like this. I found myself and freedom and want that for others. I’ve been faced with this new challenge but now that I’ve walked through hard change and I’ve see what i can do, I’m all in. I know that being scared is ok, that I could fail, but the hard work is a guarantee that I will succeed.
I told my husband that I feel like I’m having a out of body experience. I say to myself, “who is this person?”
I stepped out of my comfortable place and dove right in. I’ve made and will keep making mistakes, but I don’t let that stop me. If I miss a workout, it’s ok. If I have a day where I can’t control my macros, it’s ok. If I binge on a bag of marshmallows in my closet, it’s ok. If I fail at something in business, it’s ok. If the scale goes up a few pounds, ITS OK!
What isn’t okay is if I let these moments decide if I keep moving forward or just give up.
My encouragement to you and to myself is this:
- Do not give up on yourself because you think it’s too late.
- Do something hard.
- Get uncomfortable
- Forgive yourself.
- Trust the process.
- Quit the quick fixes.
- Have specific goals.
- Be ok with failure.
- Celebrate your wins.
- Learn from your failures.
- Don’t compare your story to someone else’s.
- Surround yourself with good accountability.
- Ask for help.
