Getting Past What Holds You Back with Baby Boomer Weight Loss Expert Scott 'Q' Marcus
Not everything works out as expected.Whether those are goals or relationships, it’s okay to say goodbye when you’re no longer being served.
Simply because you decided to do something or because you wanted to be with someone, doesn’t mean you have to do it forever. If you have honestly done all you know how to do and the results are not what you need, you have the option of moving on. After all, you are a fully functioning adult.
Of course, you’ll be happier when you succeed at your goal. That is obvious. The sense of accomplishment, success, self-confidence, and happiness are the natural result of achieving a goal.
For example too often, many people say, “When I lose those 30 pounds, I’ll be really happy.” That makes sense; after all, the sense of accomplishment, success, and achievement (let alone better health and more pride of appearance) will indeed generate a sense of happiness. But, does it happen the day you reach pound number 30? Maybe it’s at 20? How about 15? Dare I say it, is it one pound?
Shut your mouth and move your feet and you’ll drop the weight.” (The difficulty is all the “mental noise” that gets in the way.) Anyway, I’ve been proven wrong, as it apparently IS rocket science.
Let me explain.
I coach folks all across this vast land that find me via the internet or through referral. Of course, if they don’t reside in the community I call home, our sessions are via phone. Consequently, it’s unlikely I’ve met them face-to-face, or even know what they look like. Most times, unless it comes up in conversation, I am unaware of their vocations, as my purpose is to help them guide them past the pitfalls of shedding weight or changing another habit they don’t like about themselves.
With that as backstory, after calling my client, he asked me to hold while he shut the door to avoid disturbing his co-workers. This prompted me to ask, “What do you do for a living?”
“I’m a rocket scientist,” he said, “I study [something I couldn’t even begin to understand about solar winds].”
After getting past my initial geek-fest about really working with someone who is doing what I would have loved to do (if I was willing to have been a better student in college of course), we got down to brass tacks about his progress; which had hit a rough patch. Most people who are losing weight — at a healthy and sustainable pace — drop maybe a pound a week as a long-term average. He had only shed about 16 ounces in three weeks, and was understandably disappointed.
As children, we couldn’t wait to get older.The first coolest thing was when our ages hit double digits. Then, something else new and exciting was always around the bend. At 13, it was my Bar Mitzvah. Sixteen brought a driver’s license; 18 ushered in the newly earned right to vote; 21 celebrated with (too much) champagne. There was always another reason to move on to the next year. Bring ‘em on. Line ‘em up! Don’t stop!
However as John Mellencamp lamented in, “The Real Life,”
It’s a lonely proposition when you realize/That there’s less days in front of the horse/Than riding in the back of this cart.
Aside from the fact that it should be “fewer days,” (sorry, I couldn’t resist) the concept is spot on. It’s macabrely humorous that as soon as one begins to realize he’s on the downward slope of the hill, vainly pumping the brakes, the calendar’s pages flip ever faster. When we were young and immortal, time crawled at a fossil’s pace. As the clock ticks louder, it also accelerates.
I mean, yeah, sure, there’s that “death thing” looming out there, which does cast a pallid gloom on post-middle-age. Yet, spending my remaining (hopefully) many years bemoaning a natural and unavoidable process seems a pretty rotten way to appreciate those very years, wouldn’t you say? Therefore, I thought it would be good to wrap my brain around the cool things about getting older so whenever yanked to the getting-older-sucks magnet, I can repel easier.
One lad is a confirmed pessimist, his sibling the decisive optimist. Wanting to advance the cynical child’s outlook and guard the other from disappointment by teaching him that things don’t always go as expected, the parents come up with a scheme.
On Christmas morning, each youngster awakens to find his own sizeable, wrapped present. The dour child opens his and discovers in it the ultimate building set. As if on que, his demeanor sours and he whines, “There are too many pieces, I’m know I’ll lose a whole bunch of them and then I’ll be sad. Why would you do that to me?”
The upbeat sibling, on the other hand, unwraps his only to find a dirty, rusty horseshoe atop wads of paper. Undeterred by what appears to be a mean, lousy gift, he eagerly starts digging through the papers excitedly proclaiming, “Wow! There’s got to a pony in here somewhere!”
I normally don’t write “how-to” columns but a coaching client recently asked how she could become more upbeat, so I thought, “What the heck, might as well share it more widely.” Making our planet a bit more cheery, one reader at a time, here are four of the more common reasons one’s attitude can take a trip to the dumpster.