Never Good Enough – A Lesson in Loving Myself

Never good enough.

Oh man, if that doesn’t smother any hope of awesomeness, I don’t know what does.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for self-improvement and the constant willingness to up your game.

But when you never acknowledge the triumphs, embrace the accomplishments, or celebrate the victories, why bother?

After all, life is a game, and the accomplishment of goals no matter how big or small are everything, but I’m getting ahead of myself…

See this picture?

I never shared it on my social media.

Or these…

You know why?

Because I was super self-conscious…and I still thought I was fat.

Even though I had lost over 70 pounds. SEVENTY POUNDS.

I was a comfortable size 10, but I had this idea that it wasn’t good enough. I had to squeeze into a size 7/8, even if that meant I had a muffin top and felt like a stuffed sausage. 

I don’t know what the perfect size is for each for person, but I imagine it should simply be the size where one can comfortably live and BE. I don’t think it needs to be based on some chart or what the media portrays as “perfect”, because I actually believe that these are designed to fuel a constant feeling of inadequacy. No matter what your size.

Just look at any woman’s magazine.

This obsession with perfection is ruining a lot of awesomeness in the world.

Perfect is a BS standard, and what is beautiful is totally subjective. There are beautiful looking people who are pretty ugly on the inside. There are funny looking men who are married to stunning looking women and vice versa. Bald, fat, short, cross-eyed, hairy, tall, fit, not—humans come in every shape, color and appearance imaginable, and many of them are actually beautiful if you bother to look beyond the surface. But this artificial standard of beauty has skewed everything.

I don’t know why women do this to themselves, but wearing one size smaller doesn’t actually make us skinnier. In fact, it made me feel like I was fat even when I was not, which made me self-conscious and completely unable to appreciate the awesome progress I’d made.

I’m actually a pretty happy and confident “fat” person weirdly.

You know why?

Because I buy clothes that are comfortable. And seriously, if I’m a size 14 or bigger, it really is inconsequential which size I am specifically. Yet there I was obsessing over the fact that a size 10 was comfortable, but really I HAD TO BE a size 7/8 to “feel” skinny. What a waste.

Which brings me to the point of this blog post.

I never loved myself enough.

Can you believe I actually reached my ideal weight, and completely missed it?

We traveled, taking photos along the way. I even did a photo shoot with my daughters, but most of the photos never went beyond my phone or camera’s memory card because I was so hyper-critical of myself.

I didn’t actually realize that I’d come so close to my goal until I started planning out my YouTube channel for 365 Days of Awesome.

I was going through old footage and was horrified to find photos and videos of my earlier journey that I never shared because at the time, I thought I’d failed myself…and you. After all, I documented it so that I could inspire others. Somehow I missed the victories, and was too embarrassed to share anything.

Yet, I watched these videos, silently rooting for my younger self, so happy to see the progress that I’d made. I was left inspired—and sad. Inspired because I did it. Sad that it was somehow never good enough.

I see this in my friends too. They won’t go to the beach because they feel like they’re too fat, or they don’t like a picture they took to capture that special moment because they think they look old or ugly. Then years later, they see the same photo and are surprised at how great they looked.

Enough of this nonsense.

It’s time to actually love ourselves. Right now. And yes, even then.

That means setting real goals, celebrating the victories along the way, and being the best version of ourselves. Every. Single. Day.

Respect, courage, discipline, acknowledging what makes us awesome, all of it is in our hands.

Starting right now, let’s make a pact between us that we’ll start loving ourselves from now on. We are good enough. Of course, we can always get better—but let’s remember to celebrate the awesomeness now. And tomorrow, I will share with you how I am beginning this journey.

Deal?

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