The Beauty is in the Attempt

It is my belief that often people don't try as they are afraid of failing. I know this to be true in my own life. I occasionally get the "what if's", get scared and tend not to follow through. But I heard something kinda profound when watching One Tree Hill tonight, "The beauty is in the attempt." It immediately stirred something inside me.

Over the past seven months, I've seen a side of me I knew existed, but couldn't ever quite tap into her gumption. I've always been too scared of what people might think of me or of looking stupid... or any number of different excuses. But I made the decision to make a life change. It's funny, I've always seen myself as skinny (healthy), but when I see pictures of myself, I'm always shocked. I guess that means I have a semi-healthy self image of myself. Or at least, of what I hope to be soon.

I got a letter from my faithful pen pal. She's always so encouraging to me on my journey of self discovery, but she said something that made me kinda sad. You see, we watch The Biggest Loser (TBL) and always talk about the contestants and such. But she stated that she stopped watching the show, as it's completely unrealistic to lose that much weight in real life. While I agree with her, the conditions those contestants are in aren't realistic. Who can actually work out for six and seven hours a day?? No wonder they lose so much weight!! But you know what, instead of discouraging me, it inspires me to be to do more than I think I can. Every single time I want to give up at the gym, I channel Bob & Jillian and push myself that much harder.

I've been putting a lot of pressure on myself to lose weight. I too want to drop 10 pounds like the contestants on TBL, but you know what, I had an epiphany of sorts. Two pounds in one week is really good for the average person. (I also haven't been totally good either, so just think what I can do once I'm fully on board.) Also, instead of looking at it like, "Geez, I've only lost two pounds..." Instead, I said to myself, "Self, sure, two pounds doesn't seem like a lot, but look at it this way, now you only have to lose 18 more." Somehow that completely changed my perspective.

And, getting back to my original statement, "The beauty is in the attempt"... Friends, please don't beat yourself up if you should fail at something you attempted. At least you tried! That's more than you can say for some. At least you put yourself out there and tried something new! You should be proud of yourself!! There truely is beauty in the attempt. Think about that the next time you "go for it"!

Thus concludes my pep talk for the day.