Week 34 - Self-Trust
This past week I spent in Ottawa. Leaving home always throws a wrench in any routine. You don’t have the same queues and set up as you do at home. It’s soooo easy to let my exercise routine fall to the wayside. But what I’ve proven to myself time and time again is that nothing gets to come in the way of my health.
At first, the reasons were purely egoic and tied to body image. I frankly just didn’t want to get fat as my genes have shown that that is in the cards for me (Greek & Italian….LOTS of carbs and just food in general). So what started as a maybe unhealthy take on why I worked out is now about what working out does for my mental clarity and energy. But it's taken me some time to get there. This is how it started:
I used to weigh myself every single morning. If the number I saw was higher than my arbitrary set point, I mentally beat myself up all day. If it was lower than that set point, I felt good about myself. This was my morning for yeeeeears.
Until one day I asked myself, “What if I didn’t weigh myself everyday?”
And the immediately response in my head was “You can’t do that! You’ll get fat!”
And I finally heard it. I heard loud and clear that I didn’t trust myself. I didn’t trust that I know how to care for my body in a way that would maintain my health vs destroy it. It also meant that I was not in control. The number was controlling me. I looked to the number every day to tell me how I should feel about myself. I was not free. I was trapped by it.
And isn’t that exactly what we do in sales? We’re beholden to a number that we allow to define how we feel about ourselves every day. If we have a bad month, we feel like shit. If we have a good month, we’re on top of the world. The number controls us and our self-worth. We’ll always be trapped if we let that be our reality.
So that day I decided to stop weighing myself and see what would happen. I had no evidence that I could OR couldn’t maintain my health by not weighing myself so I might as well get some by trying it out.
Well…evidence I got! It’s been years since I’ve weighed myself on a daily basis. Frankly, AirBnBs don’t have scales and that’s where I’ve been living this past year mostly so it’s not been hard to not weight myself. But the facts are that my health and my weight are still exactly the same. I’ve proven that I can successful maintain the state of fitness and health that works for me without the number on the scale. I’ve proven that I can trust myself. And that.is.everything.
It permeates throughout my whole life.
Travel to Costa Rica alone for 2 months not knowing anyone? I’ll figure it out. Start a business when I’ve never done that before? I’ll figure it out.
The question I get asked most is how I got over the fear of leaving corporate to start my own business. It’s this: I trust myself. Why? Because I’ve put my trust to the test. I’ve proven that for the areas that are most important to me (ie health) that I can fully trust myself. So why would it be any different in other areas of my life?
So….what number is controlling you?
How can you test letting go of the number and seeing what happens?
If you don’t, you’ll never have the evidence to prove that you’re right OR wrong. If you don’t, you’re just proving that you’re stuck.
