Whether you’re still working toward your goal or have reached it and are ready to transition to maintenance, the challenge for most of us is not knowing what to do or not to do. The real challenge is consistency.
Consistency comes from only a few sources: External demand, willpower, a mission, and our best selves. External demands will work while they’re applied, willpower fades, and missions don’t come along every day. The pursuit of our best selves, however, can make a lasting change and carries many bonuses. Connecting or reconnecting with your best self makes the process so much easier – as it does for many areas.
What Happened?
Life has thrown us a lot of curves, and often our best selves get lost or shuffled out of recognition. One friend talked about losing herself while trying to keep her job with an awful boss, another while trying to take care of an aging parent, another while trying to survive an abusive relationship. We lose pieces of ourselves through difficult circumstances. When my husband and I learned we could not have children, I was angry and wounded and frustrated, and I spent that summer soothing myself and quickly gained 15 pounds. I had lost my vision for our life, and I didn’t care about my weight, and little pieces of my best slipped away with my self-esteem.
I’m not alone. The issues are different, but so many women grapple with our value. That’s the real pandemic: Low self-worth. It brings with it an unhealthy dose of guilt and shame, and all too quickly, we pile on more reasons we’re not good enough.
Good News
The good news is that our best can be reclaimed. It doesn’t go away, it just gets buried under the rubble of the woulda, coulda, shouldas. We can excavate – reconnect with our best selves, allowing those good thoughts and feelings to fill us again. Then we can stand up, shake off the dust, and walk free.
Those questions from last week are a good tool. Did you consider them? Make a list of qualities that make up your best self? It’s a good exercise. It’s too easy to forget the good stuff. We’re kind of hard wired to remember the negative things and forget the positive. It’s helpful to have a visual reminder. It helped me to have a coach who supported me as I struggled through all the muck. External perspective is priceless.
So, how can you reconnect and live out of that? What dust would you like to shake off so you can walk free?
Want some help?
