It's All About Perception

I'm in Arizona right now, spending time with my bestie from high school (elementary school, really) in celebration of her beautiful daughter's own graduation from high school. The ceremony was last night and it was so much fun to watch the graduate and her best buds cry and laugh and hug and scream ... and so impossible to think that it was 27 dang years ago when we were doing the very same thing.

It's such a monumental event for them ... the biggest day in their lives so far. The launching pad for whatever comes next. And yet the 45-year-old who, still rather surprisingly, stares back at me in the mirror realizes that while high school graduation is big, it won't be the biggest thing in their lives for long.

There's so very much more to come and it's going to be so much MORE important.

They're going to make moral and ethical choices about the kind of human being they are going to be. They're going to make career choices that will, in part, determine the kind of life they live. They are going to make romantic choices that will build them up or tear them down and eventually, perhaps, find the one person on the planet who challenges them enough, entertains them enough and trusts them enough to make life better than they thought possible.

They're going to succeed in some things. And they're going to fail. They're going to be afraid. And they're going to learn to count on themselves.

In the end, they're going to survive -- and thrive -- the best way they know how because they have to. There's simply no other choice. They will live the life they make. And have to live with it, too, if that makes sense.

So while graduation is big, it's going to get bigger. And they can't predict what will happen, but they can lay down the right foundation so that no matter what does, they're ready.

And what the hell does this have to do with eating right and exercising, you ask?

Well, there's perception and reality in that, too.

I was here 18 months ago. And I was feeling on top of the world physically. I had what I thought was an almost-two-mile loop around the neighborhood and I was able to run it three times every morning.

Today, I took my phone along and tracked the loop with MyTracks app as I walked it. The loop is actually closer to 2.5 miles. Which means I was running 7.5 miles a day then, not the 6 I thought I was. If you'd have asked me if I could run 7.5 miles back then, I'd have told you, "No way." If you'd have asked me if I was going to be happy "only" walking that loop twice in the future, as I did today, my response would have been the same. My perception of my capabilities was a bit off. And my perception of my achievement was, too.

I didn't know then  that I was as strong as I was. I also didn't know that it was going to be sort of short-lived. But because I put the right foundation down ... I know how to eat and I know how to exercise ... I can make the necessary adjustments in my life to handle this bump in the road.

You are stronger than you think. You are tougher than you know. You are capable of living the life you want.

Your perception of yourself matters ... because it's where your reality starts.