I once heard the phrase "the only time you fail is when you give up trying."
In some of life's more challenging moments, it's easy to throw your hands up, tell the world (or yourself) "I give up!" and internally claim failure.
I've done this many times over when it came to my struggles with weight.
I was your typical yo-yo dieter, a classic case study. My history with food, exercising (or lack thereof) and dieting is a long one, so I will spare the details. You can read very similar stories in thousands of dieting books on the market.
I claimed failure many ,many times in my life, and looking back, I can't agree that I failed at all, because in the end, I still had a drive within me to get healthy and to make goals and stick to them. It was all a learning experience that led me to now.
My "now" is a place where I've regained my health both mentally and physically.
I have set several goals in the last 10 months, and I've blown them out of the water, then set news ones, and blown them of the water too. I keep setting reasonable goals, and I keep achieving, which not only gives me a great boost in confidence, but keeps me determined to never be done.
I see myself as always wanting to achieve more and learn more. After all, isn't that the point of life?
One of my goals I refer to as a life goal, which is a goal that doesn't have an end, but something I desire to do as part of the bigger picture of my life is to help people who were like me, who desperately want change, but don't know where to start, or how to get there.
My career as a layout and graphic designer at The Citizen has given me many opportunities and much satisfaction and has been a great outlet for my artistic side. Design is in my blood and it is something I see myself doing as long as the world allows me too.
Design has its limits though, for helping people the way that I want too.
My long term goals involve becoming a certified personal trainer and becoming certified in holistic nutrition. I feel like this will provide me with the education and certificates to back up what I already know: change isn't about motivation, it's about commitment.
Commit to your goals, commit to your plan, and commit to get back on track after setbacks (because life can sometimes suck and setbacks are inevitable).
I often wonder why anyone would take my advice; I've never seen myself as an inspiration and I lack any professional training in the health field, but since I've been going to my gym on a regular basis, I had all kinds of women stop me to tell me how much progress they'd seen, and several added that I was an "inspiration."
As someone who has struggled with self-esteem her whole teenage/adult life, it's no wonder I find it hard to accept that anyone would see my progress and be inspired. I didn't set out to help anyone but myself, but discovering that others can gain something from my experiences, began to feel really, really good.
Even though I still have a tough time imagining myself as being someone who inspires, if I can help one person out there realize their worth and inspire them to keep reaching for their goals, then I've done what I set out to do.
My experiences have taught me that you can't rely on working on just one or even a couple parts of your life to ensure success, it's a multi-faceted journey that requires small steps in all directions of your life: mental health, physical health, physical activity, diet (the food you eat, not a restrictive eating plan), managing stress levels, managing relationships, etc.
If that sounds like too much, take heart that you don't need to work on everything all at once.
Finding an area in your life that is causing you the most grief and setting small goals to create change, can inspire you to make changes eventually in the other parts of your life.
I hope to touch on the many different aspects of getting healthy and inspire others to start with small changes, which will inevitably bloom into big ones.
I've currently lost 87 pounds and continue to work on my fitness levels and eating habits daily and still have about 34 pounds I'm working to lose.
I'm not an expert, and I'm still learning, and I would love to hear from anyone out there with advice, inspirations, or who simply want to chat and exchange stories, because I believe we can learn from every success and setback.
To reach Grace, email [email protected].
