Change: Are you Taking Responsibility?

"When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves."

- Victor Frankl

When I orginally accepted the offer to become a Personal Success Mentor for Ideal Bodies Online, I thought it would a wonderful opportunity to help others...to give back. What I've found true has been the opposite - that I'm getting much more than what I give.

How does this happen? In fact, I've often heard this said by people (living and passed) who have given alot of their own time and selves to helping others in a big way. People like Fred Hollows or Mother Theresa who had given of themselves in their lifetimes, tirelessly, and always with a spirit of gratitude for the work they had done. I always wondered how that worked. And I always thought that they just said those things, because they were maybe too humble or embarrassed to take credit for the selfless work they did.

But you know, I think I get it now.

In my endeavour to help others in the fat loss journey, I've had to constantly re-evaluate my own (journey). Inadvertently, I've been taking stock of my own life and in the process I'm having to face my own challenges with the same attitude that I purport to encourage. To remain relevant and to find the energy and passion to inspire, one has to ensure that what he preaches, he must practice.

"The disconnect between what we say and what we do is not merely a measure of hyposcrisy, since we usually believe our statements of good intent. We simply pay too much attention to our words - ours and others' - and not enough to the actions that really define us."

- Gordon Livingstone

Each time I take on a new client, I never know what is in store. Different people from different backgrounds wanting the same or similar outcomes. TO LOSE WEIGHT. That's it in a nutshell really. However, it's never as simplistic as it sounds.But what is it that they are really wanting? It's not to lose weight.

I believe that wanting to lose weight is just a by-product of the DESIRE TO CHANGE. By losing weight, we believe that our lives will be forever changed. And for some, it is. But in the short time that I've being doing this, I've come to realise that the weight loss issue is more about the person we imagine ourselves to be on the inside (and more apparent - on the outside).

We have this perception of what we should really be like and who we really are, and more often that not, it isn't the person we see in the mirror. Our perception of who think we really are, is what drives us to change. And it's our level of ardent desire to be that person and everything that we envisage that goes with it as a total package, which will see us succeed or not. It's whether we want it bad enough and whether we can continue to visualise the possibility of becoming that person, as to whether we will persevere, regardless of the time it will take to reach that goal.

However, the first step for success, and one which I believe is often overlooked, is our ability to take responsibility for getting ourselves to that dark place in the first place. The reasons can be varied and are often complex. Our ability to first of all admit, that regardless of what has happened in our lives, that at some stage we gave our control over to someone else or something else, and then to realise that we can gain back control, is the first step to making true and lasting change.

Part of the journey then becomes about unravelling. That baggage we've accumulated along the way, are the outdated habits and thought patterns which no longer serve us in our quest to become that person we so ardently desire to be. And in that unravelling, we have to deal with painful feelings and emotions.

The pain and anguish revealed by clients often saddens me and brings me to tears some days, and I'm once again forced to be grateful for having taken the journey they aspire to take. To have reached that place they so ardently desire reminds me to be grateful, and that my challenges pale in significance to their pain. It gives me reason to re-focus on my own journey and to take my place at the front, so I can continue to lead. I forget that however insignificant I feel my achievements are in comparison to others, that there are just as many, who aspire to achieve what I have right now.

"When we think about loss of freedom, we seldom focus on the ways in which we voluntarily impose constraints upon our lives. Everything we are afraid to try, all our unfulfilled dreams, constitute a limitation on what we are and could become. Usually it is fear and its close cousin, anxiety, that keep us from doing those things that would make us happy. So much of our lives consists of broken promises to ourselves. The things we long to do - educate oursleves, become successful in our work, fall in love - are goals shared by all. Nor are the means to achieve these things obscure. And yet we often do not do what is necessary to become the people we want to be."

- Gordon Livingstone

So, if you're reading this and you want to make a change or two in your life, I would invite you to look deep within yourself and first of all take responsibility for where you are right now.

Be brave...and be willing to change.

If you can't take the first step on your own, then seek help and the right support to help you unravel and become the person you want to be. Don't waste any more time. Life is too short and precious.
And don't stop...until...

*N.B. Quotes by Gordon Livingston, M.D. are from his book, 'Too Soon Old, Too Late Smart'. Thanks to Andrew for lending me his book (which I gave him as a birthday gift, and should have read beforehand... :P).