attitude

I’m not sure how often I’ve said it here; but I say it to my students all the time. Attitude is one of the biggest factors of success. It sounds corny, but I truly believe it and have experienced it. When one approaches a task with a positive attitude the chance that he or she is going to successfully complete that task is towering over someone with a negative attitude.

When I was in college I had to take Calculus, it was a degree requirement. In high school I didn’t think I was a math person, and I let it get in the way of doing well in Math and Science and on those lovely lovely standardized tests, if only I could go back and approach high school with a positive attitude. But the point here isn’t about high school… it’s about college. So the first time I took Calculus I had a bad attitude and projected it onto the professor. I felt I couldn’t learn anything from him and ended up just stopping going to class. Needless to say I had an F in the class. Two years later I took the class again; this time with a positive approach. I told myself that I would do all of the homework and practice questions every day and would ask for help if there was something I didn’t understand. I had a positive approach to the class and the professor and had a much better experience. I ended up getting a B or B+ (I can’t remember which) in the class which is amazing for someone who didn’t think that she was a “math person.”

I’ve tried to lose weight before as well. I don’t think that I approached it with the right positive attitude. I was full of “I hope I lose weight” and “If I get this weight off.” There was doubt that I would be able to be successful, and it turned out to be a self-fulfilling prophecy. This go-round, I do not allow myself to say “I hope” it’s “I will” and so on. This time I know I am going to be successful and keep in mind that eating according to Eat to Live is the healthiest thing that I can do for my body, that the food does taste good, and that I enjoy exercising. I’m not just telling myself these things figuring that they will sink in eventually; I really do believe them.

This doesn’t mean that the road is not long and rough. I do feel disappointed when I end up caving to myself and eating food that I shouldn’t. Eating for comfort and stress relief is something that I do have to get a grip on, and will. Sometimes I do get feeling down about my progress, especially when I get into these places where I struggle to get the scale moving. Losing weight is tough, and I want to be as honest about my experience as possible. It’s not all good, but I do try to find the positive. I’m sorry if sometimes this doesn’t come through, I will be more vigilant about it in the future.

There are other factors aside from food that come into play. A lifetime of living as a fat girl doesn’t do much for one’s self-confidence and in my case has made me a shy and introverted person. I prefer being by myself or with hubby, my close family and very very good friends and am very uncomfortable with strangers or large crowds. I do feel much better about my appearance already and know that that feeling will continue to grow as I continue to lose weight. I think that feeling better about my appearance will allow me to increase self-confidence and help me to become a more outgoing person in the future – I just need to approach it with a positive attitude.

Thank you to the Anonymous commenter from Monday’s post for getting me thinking about all of this. If nothing else; I need to keep in mind that I am no longer a 300lb miserable and hopeless person and that I’ve got a lot to be excited about.

The image is one of my favorite paintings, it is “New York Movie" by Edward Hopper.