I have always been a big believer in self-reflection during stressful times. I do this to help myself get refocused on my goals, as it allows me to see how far I have already come to achieving them. Really I have no clue how or when I started to use self-reflection this way, but I figure it had something to do with that old saying, “the answers of the future are found in the past.” Which was a saying I picked up from my dad years ago during one of our many adventures overseas.
As I got older and became an adult my ability to use self-reflection became limited to my professional life only. I knew this had happened, especially when people would say stuff like, “Mike, look how far you have come with your weight” or “I bet your are really energized by how healthy you are.” Both of these sayings drove me nuts, and I hated when people would say them to me because it made me reflect on where I had come from and that stupid scale number people thought was hanging over my head.
What people never got was that the number on the scale has never been something that is really that important to me. I like to see it come down, and I use it to set goals for my self, but in my head it really has never provided me a WOW moment. A great example of this was a couple months ago when I was 5 pounds away from hitting a HUGE milestone of my journey, 100 pounds down since May of this year. To any normal person this would be something that would be monumental in their life, but for me it will just be another day and number, which I did not feel was right.
So the other evening I started to really think about how and why the scale did not encourage me to push harder. As I sat there thinking about it on accident I began to reflect back to my childhood and the scale. I quickly had memories of getting kicked off rides, not fitting into clothes, being made fun of, and my parents getting me a personal trainer who was crazy focused on the scale.
For me this was an eye-opening moment that for most of my life I never looked back when it had to do with my weight because it hurt too much. So as I sat there I made myself keep going through all this stuff in my head to find moments that were positive, and though it took a long time I started to come up with some. The first was a memory of this guy that slid off the road and buried his car in the snow that with my help and strength was able to get him out and off on his way. This memory sparked a flood of other positive memories that tied my strength and girth back to positive life moments, and started to make reflection a little more fun for my weight.
Today when I look back my mind still tends to the negative moments in life, but I quickly work to refocus it to some of those positive moments. When I get it focused the way I want I can feel this surge of energy flow through my body. This is what I use to get my butt out of bed and to the gym at 5am, play with my daughter after a long hard day of work, and navigate the complex political world that is my office on a daily basis.
For those of you who feel the past is too hard to relive, I strongly encourage you to try again but to work to find even the smallest moments of good and happiness. Doing this has had a huge positive impact in my life, and especially on my weight loss journey. It has provided me a new source of energy I never knew was there, and one that I use to help me continue down the path each and every day.
