"No one can go back and make a brand new beginning,
but anyone can begin now and make a brand new ending."
Regret can be crippling on your thoughts and behaviors and is one of the biggest parts of my mental side of this journey. My first major regret hurdle was in the beginning - when your head finally quits making excuses for the past and you take that first step forward to making a positive change.
But my hardest struggle with regret happened along the journey - when success was becoming real. I went into this thinking a size 8 would be a success (assumed this would be around 160 lbs). But when I put on that size 4 (tried on 10 different things to verify it was really that size and not the brand), it never entered my mind as something I could ever achieve. Yes - I know this sounds odd - most people struggle with the ongoing, daily motivation and here I was paralyzed by surpassing expectations.
So here comes the regret and fear.... regret that I may have limited myself from real success in the past... fear of being able to achieve future success. To a small extent, I question whether I deserve the success. For me it was easier to avoid the success altogether and live in denial - rather than tackle the real issues.
Because I had defined myself by me successes, when the unachievable did happen - I questioned whether they were really success measures. Yeah - Perfectionism, Goal-Oriented - and now my world just got turned upside down for all those things I thought were real. I spent time questioning all the major decisions in my life - spent sleepless nights on the "what ifs" for changing the past. And with each day, I became more sad and mad at myself. And the more mad I got at myself, the more I took it out at the gym...
I can always tell my mental moods by the music that inspires me in the gym - and during this time - it was a LOT of angry rock music.... like "I'm so sick" by Flyleaf, "I'm coming undone" by Korn, "Sickness" by Disturbed, and "Killing in the Name" by Rage Against the Machine.... See the recurring theme in these?
But then the denial had to come to an end (with a not so gentle nudge from a friend who called me out on my BS), it was time I started acknowledging the success and be proud of it. But it wasn't a single moment that I was able to change from regret to focusing on the future - it was slowly every day working through those emotions until the music just didn't have the same reaction for me. I realized that I couldn't change the past - that every decision made in the past helped shape me to be the person I am today.
"When one door closes, another opens; but we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened for us."
There are still days I can't really believe I did this! But I am looking hard for that opened door - because I know there is something out there that will allow me to be myself - the Full Strength, Hyped up on Pre-Workout Energy Drinks person that I am!
There are still days I can't really believe I did this! But I am looking hard for that opened door - because I know there is something out there that will allow me to be myself - the Full Strength, Hyped up on Pre-Workout Energy Drinks person that I am!
So...for me - there’s no more Next Time... It's about now or never.
Hi Amy, I came over here from MyFitnessPal. Congrats on your success. I'll be looking at your blog tomorrow, time for bed over here :) I think the whole mental process is half of the battle, esp. when it's such a struggle.
ReplyDeleteHi Amy, I too came to visit from MyFitnessPal. Much along the lines of this blog post, I've made the decision not to think, ponder or congratulate myself about how much weight I've lost. I have come to believe that focusing on how much I've lost is a way of looking back, of holding on to what I used to be, of not accepting myself for who I am today. I don't tell people how much I've lost. I politely thank people for compliments and then change the conversation. And I most definitely do NOT tell new people I meet, "I've lost xx pounds."
ReplyDeleteMy success (my strength really) is in how I think, feel and act today, not in how different my thoughts, feelings and actions are from a year ago. And every day that becomes more and more important as how I used to be recedes further and further into the past.