Afraid to Fail

I had a conversation with my friend HR Girl the other day about why it's so hard to just "start" all this. Why is it so hard when you know what to do ... eat less, eat right, exercise more. You know it's probably not "fun" at first, but you also know it's not like getting poked in the eye with a stick. You know it will pay off and the reward of better health and a clearer head will be worth it. You know that you're already feeling like crap about yourself, so there's nowhere to go but up.

So why then, do we not just start? Why do we find a million excuses to not start?

In our best Dr. Phil impersonations, we ran through a few options and ended up with this:

Afraid to fail.

Afraid you'll try it and not be successful. Afraid everyone will know that you couldn't do it.

After thinking about it more, I'm going to argue against this theory. I think I didn't start because by starting I had to admit that I'd ALREADY failed. I had to admit that it wasn't OK to be as big as I was. I had to admit that I didn't like me. I had to admit that I had a problem. I had to admit that I was hurting. Or acknowledge it "out loud" anyway.

You see, as I got bigger, I kept trying to justify me. I hunkered down inside myself and dared you to treat me differently. If you did, you were the one with the problem and I was right. And righteous. The world should love me the same if I'm big or small, for heaven's sake. I built up this attitude that everything was just fine and you'd better not suggest otherwise. And if you did, I got to be the victim of YOUR prejudice ... so you were the one with the problem and not me.

I'm not sure that makes sense or if I'm explaining it right. The truth is I was afraid. And I had a bunch of bad habits that I believed would require too much effort to change. And I didn't believe in myself enough. 

It's good to not be afraid anymore. It's good to have better habits.

Most of all, it's good to believe in me.