FertilehealthyAiming for success, not perfection…

Do you ever feel that you are simply doomed to fail?  Or if not exactly “doomed”, then certainly “more than likely” to fail?

I used to believe that.  I wasn’t conscious of that fact, but yes, that was my belief and it had a few friends – “I’m not good enough”, “I don’t deserve…”, “I’m a quitter”, “I’m fundamentally flawed” and “I can’t…”.

My life seemed like an endless string of failures.  The more hopeless I felt, the less I was inclined to try something new, to take risks.  What would be the point?  I’d only get hurt, hurt someone else, fail, end up worse off, get rejected or DIE.  So I stayed where I was, stewing in my negative beliefs and never accomplishing much.  Is it any wonder that my life felt empty?

William Shakespeare said: “Our doubts are traitors.  They make us lose the good we oft might win, by fearing to attempt.”

As I’m uncovering and addressing my deepest beliefs, I am starting to see just how I’d derailed my efforts to lose weight in the past.

Let’s face it, weighing 345 pounds – my starting weight – makes one feel like a massive failure!

But when I examined the process that got me there, I discovered to my surprise that my fat did not signify failure.  I am not a failure.  On the contrary, I am a huge, unmitigated success.  I had, through my consistent actions over a period of time, successfully produced the result of being fat.  Outcome-based living, if you will.

Of course, I reached a point where the result of my actions, or lifestyle, no longer pleased me.  I didn’t want to be fat anymore.  I set myself the task of getting thin.  What needed to happen then was that I had to become as successful, if not more so, at slimming down than I’d been at gaining weight.  To produce that result, I had to change my beliefs, my actions, the way I lived my life.

Simply regarding my excess weight as failure immobilized me.  By changing it to a success, I could envision success of a different kind.  I can now allow myself to be empowered by success and refuse to be cowed by failure.

Of course, it would help if I could find more evidence of success in my past.  So, I decided to start at the beginning and I didn’t have to look very hard before I found it.

There was a time when I couldn’t walk.  But nature planted the desire to walk in me, and one day, after having pulled myself to my feet, like I’d been doing for a while, I let go of the coffee table and took a few teetering steps.  And then I fell down.

There was much excitement in our house that day.  Nobody paid the least attention to the fact that I’d only walked about three steps, or that I’d in fact fallen.  The buzz was all about the fact that I had walked.  They were so proud! At the same time, the falls didn’t deter me from getting back on my feet and trying again.  Today I can walk fine, and I very rarely stumble or fall.

So, I can no longer claim that I always fail.  These are just two of my successes.  There are many more.

Sure, when it comes to slimming down, I had often failed to produce the correct outcome, but all those “failures” gave me a benefit and an asset I didn’t have before.  Experience.  When you have experience, you can apply it to effect a better outcome next time.

Refuse to ever use the term “failure” again about yourself, or anybody else for that matter.  You didn’t fail, you only produced a result.  If the result is not to your liking, adjust your aim and try again.

Success will be yours!