Be yourself; Everyone else is already taken.

— Oscar Wilde.

Honesty is the best policy….

September 16, 2019 was the start of my journey towards health. I had just celebrated my 24th (umm…let’s be real my 43rd) birthday. I knew that I needed to make some changes in order to do all the things I wanted to do and to have the energy I needed to be able to care for my family, staff, and students. Being a servant leader by nature means that I am always focused on how I can support others.

I spent sometime soul searching and thinking about my “Why”…what would be different about this attempt to lose weight, what is the key to maintaining a healthy body. I landed on a few things…some might seem silly, but they are things that are keeping me focused. I want to be able to water ski again. It has been about 10 years since I water skied, and my boys are now at that age where they need to see someone model it so they will try to water ski. I wanted to wear a pair of jeans with no stretch in them. Let’s be honest the stretch jeans are way more comfortable, and I will wear them, but I wanted to make the choice…not my booty! As I am entering middle age, I have seen how being healthy positively impacts the energy, activity, and zest for life of elderly folks. People in my family live well into their 90s (Grandma will be turning 99 this week), so I want to create the conditions for my best life possible. All of these “Why’s” are motivating and driving me, and I down 37-38 pounds (depends on the day). I have been eagerly awaiting the big 4-0, maybe because it is a friendly number (educators- you will get this reference), or because it feels like a big milestone.

At this point you might be wondering why is there a picture of Europe on my blog… the past two weeks, I have been in the dreaded plateau. Three pounds, so close, yet so far away. The lesson I learned was, trust the program and work through the process. In my mind, I wanted to have lost 40 pounds in 4 months…tomorrow is weigh day so we will see what it brings. During these past 2 weeks, I was able to practice my skills of patience and knowing that everything has a time and season. Patience is something that I use in my daily practice at school, and it tends to come more naturally as I am planting seeds to encourage folks to grow, when it comes to myself it is another story. We all have goals, they should be audacious, and when we aren’t hitting our goals in the time we expected, it can be discouraging. This week, my mantra is going to be progress not perfection. Each day is a new opportunity to take another step towards being my best self!