Category: goals

Soft

I love every word of this. It matches my mood perfectly. I feel reflective, contemplative. I want to ponder the lessons and opportunities presented to me from the past year, but without chastisement, without judging where I think I should be now, and without grand, sweeping vows for the new year.

That’s not to say I don’t have goals for 2026. I certainly do. But this year, something is different. I strive to enter 2026 from a position of peace, with a positive mentality, a focus on love and spirituality and family and simply becoming a better version of me: for me, for my husband, for my stepkids, all my loved ones.

Soft is something I used to actively avoid. I saw it as weak, ineffective. If I was going to do something, then the only way to do it was balls-to-the-wall, full speed ahead, with no room for setbacks or slowing down or flexibility. In hindsight, it shouldn’t be a surprise that that sort of approach has led to a lot of self-doubt, disappointment, frustration, and slipping back into bad habits. It’s not a sustainable mentality.

Usually by this time, I have written down a list of New Year resolutions, and my planner would already be full of next steps, to-do items, tasks to be completed. My need to have everything perfectly organized and planned down to every tiny detail would be in overdrive.

I just feel different this year. I don’t feel like I need to “fix” anything about myself. There are areas I want to improve, sure, but I am done with the attitude that there are things that are wrong that need to be corrected, or that I need to put anything on hold until I achieve a certain goal. I guess I just don’t want to be so hard on myself anymore, simple as that.

So, I am ending 2025 with a softness. Clarity. Peace. Simplicity. Gentle introspection. I want to leave anything that interferes with that where it belongs: far, far behind me.

Pretty Damn Good

I typically skip over quotes like this. I call them rah-rah-girl-power quotes and usually find them annoying, at best. But this one felt personal. This year has been a lot of work, a lot of clean-up, a lot of introspection, and now I am finally reaping the benefits. I look better. I feel better. I am happier.

After facing and conquering some of the emotional hurdles that have held me back since my mom died, I feel so much more gratitude and peace. A lot of people never battle their demons, and they spend the rest of their life paying the price for it. It’s exhausting, but worth it. After climbing that treacherous mountain, well, all of my other goals seems so much more doable now in comparison.

Am I perfect? Hell no. The beauty is, I know that. I accept that. And I am more than okay with that, because I had the honesty and strength to pinpoint, examine, and release the parts of me that had to go, for me to be happier. So, no angel wings here, but I do have a smile, love, a sense of accomplishment, and excitement for my future. I’d say that is doing pretty damn good.

Party for Two

The first time I saw this quote, I saved it to my phone. It’s been there since early this year, long before I made my new start to take better care of myself. There are many reasons I wanted to lose weight and get healthy again, and undeniably, one of the biggest reasons was to make my husband proud of me for doing it.

Thing is, though, he was never disappointed in me to start with. Naturally, he was worried about my health, and he didn’t like the toll that gaining weight had taken on my self-esteem and attitude about myself. He told me he would not tolerate anyone talking bad about me, including me. That meant a lot to me and stayed with me.

My husband has watched me lace up my sneakers, trudge off to workouts I didn’t want to do, ice my knee when my body wasn’t quite ready for all this yet, weigh in each week, smiling some weeks and ready to smash the scale on others. He has been there from the “I think I need to make some changes” stage to the “Hot damn, baby, these jeans fit!” stage, and each stop in between.

And he has never made me feel like I am less than beautiful and sexy to him. Even when I couldn’t stand to look in the mirror at myself, even when pounds kept creeping on, he believed in me, saw something I couldn’t see anymore. I lost faith in myself at some point, but he never did, and because of that, I was able to shakily get back on my feet one more time and whisper, “Let’s try again.”

I am grateful for my husband. Every day, he gives me new reasons to love him even more. Reaching my goal has never been a one-woman show or a solitary celebration. He has been my biggest supporter every step of the way, reminding me of exactly what I am capable of, so this is definitely a much-deserved party for two.

I DID IT!

I can barely sit still to type this post today. To be honest, this is a post I was starting to believe I would never write. But finally, at long last, I can proudly and triumphantly say: I DID IT!

I have struggled with my weight for a long time. Most of you know that after my mom died a few years ago, I gained a lot of weight. I stopped taking care of myself in so many ways. It took a long time–over two years–for me to feel ready to tackle my weight again, but when I did, I made myself a promise: no half-assing. Give it my all, all the way to the finish line.

No pills. No injections. No surgery. No cheating. It was tempting, I’ll admit, especially when an injury and then illness sidelined me for weeks, and I re-gained about 11 pounds. I was frustrated and looked into weight loss injections, but ultimately, I decided that chemicals, side effects, and unknown long-term risks just aren’t the way I want to go.

I decided to stick with just me, sweat, hard work, and dedication.

One step at a time. One rep, one workout, one meal, one decision at a time.

Day in, day out, making changes, pushing myself, talking to myself out loud if that is what it took. Reminding myself what I want to look like, what I want to feel like, how badly I want to prove to myself that I can accomplish this. On my own.

And I did. It still doesn’t feel real to me, but I sure as hell did.

Instead of setting a goal weight number, I decided to use my favorite pair of jeans as the measuring stick. They have no stretch, zero forgiveness, and haven’t fit in years! When I first started this challenge, I was lucky to fit my legs up to my knees into them.

This morning? They pulled right up, zipped, buttoned. I almost cried.

I have lost over 70 pounds and dropped several dress sizes. My BMI and blood pressure are back in a healthy range. I am stronger, happier, fitter.

I am beyond thrilled to finally be here, but now that I know what I am capable of, I want even more. Running goals, weight lifting goals, pushing myself just a little bit farther.

But for right now? I am going to enjoy reaching my goal. I am going to bask in pride and victory. I am going to keep whispering “I did it” until it really sinks in. And, something I have been waiting a long, long time to do…I am celebrating by going shopping for new, smaller clothes!

Design a site like this with WordPress.com
Get started