You can be great

You’re stopping yourself from being great and here’s why…

When I was eleven years old I had this big dream. I wanted to live in a mall with all my friends. We’d travel through the halls on rollerblades and bikes and live off of cookies and pretzels. We’d throw dance parties and only go to school if we felt like it.

My dreams matured as years passed. I wanted to be high school royalty. I wanted to make movies. I wanted to wear cute sundresses and vacation in the Keys. I wanted someone I liked to actually ask me out. I wanted to go to work happy. I wanted to own my own business. I wanted to be the life of the party.  I wanted to spend days camping and hiking. I wanted to get married and have kids.

I pictured these things, but I didn’t approach them as goals or realistic dreams. They were the type of thoughts I had right before I went to bed at night. They were fantasies, much like my mall dream and never once did I think, I can actually have these things if I work for them.

When I looked in the mirror at over 350 pounds, I sometimes thought; This will do. Sometimes I applied a lot of extra effort to how I looked. I might buy a new outfit and put makeup on. But honestly the best thought I ever had about myself was…Yeah, I look okay for being a fat cow. And for some reason (that I’ll never understand,) I let that be good enough for me. I was so embarrassed of myself that I mostly stopped caring all together. I stopped brushing my hair for a year. I didn’t care enough to chase my dreams, because even though I desperately wanted them, they just seemed so out of reach and completely unreasonable.

So, I’ve been facing this new, weird feeling. I look in the mirror and I’m pissed. I don’t like the way I look. I don’t like the way clothes fit. I can’t stand how thin my hair is, and I wish I could completely get rid of these dark circles under my eyes.  But I realized feeling these things is better than feeling nothing at all because while there will probably always be something about myself I’m not satisfied with, I now know there are some things I can change. If I want to lose this muffin top, I will do just that.  And these days, when I throw on my favorite outfit or curl my hair just right, I think…Yeah, I look pretty good. Period. End of thought.

Knowing that I have the ability to change myself for the better gave me the confidence to pursue my dreams as goals, whole-heartedly.  I was stopping myself from being great because I didn’t believe that I was capable of change, I didn’t think I was worth change, and I didn’t think life would wait for me to change.  I didn’t think I was great, so getting there seemed out of the question.

I wasn’t scared of failing because I thought starting in the first place was worthless. But to be great and achieve the great things you want to in your life, you have to think you’re capable of greatness. My nose will always be pointy. I will probably always snort when I get really tickled and I may never climb Everest. But it took me 15 years to realize that all the things I want out of life don’t have to be pipe dreams. And if I still really wanted to live in a mall with all my friends, sipping on Orange Julius and swimming in the fountains, I would actually have the courage to work toward it no matter how outlandish it may seem. Thankfully, I graduated to dreams of finishing a half-marathon, taking a fishing trip, fitting into my size 10 cocktail dress and swimming a mile.

Stop thinking you’re not worth all the great things you want out of life. Instead of sleeping with your dreams, start chasing them.