If you’re a Type A control freak, raise your hand. Yup, me too.
I’m sure I’m also not alone in saying that 2020 and 2021 were very humbling lessons in understanding what I do and don’t have control over. You can read more about how I’ve been humbled by 2020 and 2021 here because this post is an explanation of how I found a bit of a saving grace in regaining control in a two-year period of time where there was very little to be had.
In 2021, I made a decision to commit to myself. What does this mean exactly? Good question. I think it was a work in progress all year long. However, at the end of 2020, I decided that in 2021 I was going to work on becoming a better me.
This meant a lot of different things. It meant a lot of self-care. It also meant resetting expectations for myself personally and professionally. But the biggest thing that helped me regain control in 2021 was diet and exercise.
Now there are plenty of other resources out there that can tell you about the benefits of diet and exercise. This isn’t one of them. This is just my story of how it changed my life in a more profound way than I realized. October 11, 2021, I joined Stasia Patwell’s School of Thot Program and continued it for the following 10 weeks leading up to the holiday break. It was the saving grace I didn’t know I needed. And no, this isn’t a promotion for her program, but if you’re thinking about it, you really should chat with her because it truly changed my life and it could change yours too.
Don’t bark at me, but I’ve always been quite fortunate that my metabolism was rather kind to me. I spent the majority of my life eating whatever I wanted and was always pretty skinny. However in 2016, I officially began my entrepreneurial journey, turned 30, and my metabolism apparently decided to quit.
So for the following five years, I tried to juggle navigating entrepreneurship, which is full of its own challenges, as well as tried to start creating some type of healthy habits for really the first time in my life.
That shit ain’t easy.
And I failed. I failed quite a few times.
At the end of 2020, I decided to commit to losing the 20 pounds and 6% body fat I needed to honor my body and be a healthier me. In the first 90 days of 2021, I managed to lose the first 10 pounds and 2% body fat on my own. But that’s where it plateaued.
I made relatively no additional progress for the next six months. Then I joined Stasia Patwell’s School of Thot Program and finally started to see new results.
There’s so much I didn’t know about nutrition and what my body really needed because I either didn’t pay attention or didn’t know what questions to ask. But I committed to change because I had to.
I committed to drinking a gallon of water a day. I committed to 10,000 steps a day. I committed to 1,352 cal a day. I committed to tracking my food. I committed to two workouts a week. I committed to no booze during, what turned out to be the 10 weeks after I got engaged. (Very tricky to turn down celebratory champagne toasts.) I committed to meal prep, which ultimately helped me become a better significant other because I was finally contributing to dinner and in a healthy way!
I committed to myself. I committed to my health.
The program is officially eight weeks long, but I stuck it out for another two weeks until my two week holiday break. Over that period of time I lost my final 10 pounds and the final 4% body fat. I lost 4 inches around my waist and 2 1/2 inches around my hips.
I gained confidence and control that I had not experienced in five years. I became a better partner. I became a better leader. I became a better me by committing to myself.
And I share this because, again, I didn’t realize I was suffering from such a lack of control until about halfway through this program. But I was, in a very real way. The end of 2021 was pretty tough on me, but this commitment really helped to save my sanity and for that, I am truly grateful.
Sometimes the answers we seek present themselves before we even were aware we needed to ask the question…
A few questions for reflection:
- What do you feel is out of control right now?
- What can’t you control?
- What can you control?
- What is one thing that could make a huge impact on your life right now if it were to change?
- What is keeping you from doing this right now?
- What is the impact that one thing could have on your life ?
- What else might it impact?
- What is keeping you from doing this right now?
- What is one thing you could do to take a step toward making that a reality?
