Are You Plagued With Self-Doubt?
September 19, 2013Defeating Your Self-Doubt
As a coach, personal trainer, motivator and weight loss journeyman myself, I often see the sabotaging self-doubt that many people experience during their weight loss journey. I get texts and emails daily from my clients asking me if I am aware of what workout or goal I have given them. The “I don’t think I can do that” message. My simple reply is try, do what you think you can. It amazes me the follow up messages I get. It amazes them even more that they can do whatever it is I challenge them to do. I think that for so long, we have failed at the “diet” and we’re unable to lose the weight that we begin to think we truly can’t do it. Too often we treat the WLS lifestyle change like the countless diets we have failed at in the past. We pretty much set ourselves up for failure. It becomes our way of thinking; it is programmed in our brains. We have long let ourselves down, but also all of those around us that we think, “What is just another let down, I am used to these!” We rely too heavily on the scale, and tend to forget about the other non-scale victories. We tell ourselves, I didn’t lose any weight this week and I worked hard, then immediately resort to the cookies and ice cream, sneaking McDonalds in the car, or skipping our workouts. It becomes a viscous cycle that by defeating that self-doubt, you can break!
I remember one of my athletes training hard for her first half marathon. She had lost about 75 pounds. She completed the weekly workouts, worked on nutrition and proper hydration; put her first to complete her goal. About a week before her race, her then boyfriend told her that he liked her better fat, that she spent more time at home and why would she run the half marathon; she wasn’t going to finish it anyway. On race day I received a text message at about mile 7 from her, that she wanted to quit, her boyfriend was right, she wasn’t going to finish. I never left my post at the finish line (Mind you I ran the full marathon in record time to beat her to the finish line so I could see her and 10 other of my athletes run their first half marathon finish). About an hour later I received another text message, “HOLY SHIT, I did it, where are you?” Little did she know that I was there, I was at the finish line watching her cross, sharing in the extreme sense of accomplishment that she had. I walked up behind her, gave her a tearful hug and said “Why am I the only one that believes in you? Why didn’t you believe in yourself?” It was this self-doubt that almost cost her the overwhelming joy of completing a goal that she set out to achieve.
For many of you, I may never meet you in person, I may never coach you, I may never have the opportunity to talk with you in person, but I can promise you one thing. I BELIEVE IN YOU. I believe in your abilities to accomplish anything you set you to achieve. You want to run a marathon or complete a triathlon, I believe in you. I was there; I have walked in your shoes. After losing my 160 pounds, I hired a coach to help me achieve a goal. I wanted to be an Ironman. I wanted to swim, bike, and run 140.6 miles and get that elusive M-Dot tattoo. My first coach told me that I cheated by having WLS and that I would never be able to complete the Ironman. So immediately I loathed in my self-doubt. I gave up on my goals. Said maybe he was right, maybe I should just stick to what I am currently doing and let go of the desire to be an Ironman. I went out on my first Ironman and DNF’d (Did not finish), I was pulled from the bike course with only 20 miles left and still a marathon left to run. Instead of giving up on my dreams, I used it to be my driving force. To prove not only to him, but to myself that no matter what I want to do, the only person stopping me from doing it is ME! The first time that you let go of that self-doubt, is the first time that you will go out and achieve something you never thought possible. Imagine not only the feeling you will have of doing something you want, but imagine how those that aided in your self-doubt will feel seeing you accomplish it as well. Overcoming that self-doubt and achieving whatever it is you set out to achieve, is the biggest middle finger to those that also doubted you!
About Richard Kalasky
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