Acrobats are not the only ones that can balance…

Now you can learn to balance like an acrobat.

You have a lot of sources telling you how you should be, act, and do. You are told what to look like, where to work, what to wear, what to watch, and even how to be friends with. There are so many rules telling you how to live your life. Even if you are a rebel, like me, and do not like following rules, you still feel this pressure to conform.

You ask yourself “Am I good enough?”

You are a hard worker and you have high and awesome goals. Each day you work hard to achieve your goals, but all these rules and expectations cause you to doubt yourself. There are so many external sources telling you how to diet and how to workout.

Missing reps in the gym or having a “cheat meal” cause you to feel like you failed. If you are a high achiever you are not able to settle for less than, so if you miss something, or didn’t burn as many calories, or you miss a rep you tell yourself you are a failure.

This is why balance is really hard to find.

Balance is not about being all Zen and calm and getting it all right. You are not perfect and you are going to make mistakes. You know this, yet your brain tells you all the mistakes you made and all the faults you have. Rather than seeing what you did right and what you did well you focus on the mistakes. So you work extra hard the next day to diet perfectly. You plan all your meals just like you should. You hit the gym and make sure you get your full rotation in and when you leave you are not able to move. If you make a mistake you go hard the next day. This is not balance.

Balance is about being able to accept imperfection. It is accepting that you ate Chick-Fil-A for breakfast and again for lunch and you are not able to attend the gym. Balance is about knowing that today you are not able to devout the energy needed to a diet and a workout, but that tomorrow you will.

“So how do I find balance”?

• • Don’t sweat the small stuff. Accept that balance is hard to find and you will mess up. Even if you are a perfectionist and struggle when you do not do as well as you expected. This is totally OK.

• • Accept the pressure you put on yourself and that you will do a lot right, but you are also going to screw up. You are going to disappoint someone. You are going to miss something or forget something. But you are also going to do a lot right.

• • Give yourself permission to screw up and fail. This is not easy to accept or hear. When you give yourself permission to screw up and know that things will not go as planned, you know you have the next day to try again. You have another day to do better.

• • Pat yourself on the back, even when you make a mistake. If you don’t get it all done, you are still OK because today you did what is best for you. You did the best you can.

Acceptance is SO HARD! The more you practice accepting these things, the easier it gets. So let’s all practice together. How can you fail today? Fail on purpose. Let me hear from you how you failed today.

Comment below how you plan to fail or how you failed today. 

You can learn to accept your body and love your life. You can learn to challenge disordered eating thinking and behaviors. You can learn to have confidence and self-acceptance. If you find you are having trouble with this, please ask for help. There is a lot of good support and help out there for you.

If you find this information helpful please share. This is a very complex issue that cannot be addressed in a 5 minute video, but feel free to ask questions and comment. Perhaps there is something I can help clarify for you.

Still not sure if you have an eating disorder? Here is a self-assessment, https://www.nationaleatingdisorders.org/screening-tool.  This quick tool is to help you determine if you have an eating disorder and if you should get help. Visit NationalEatingdisorder.org to find help and get more information.