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I did it again.

I fell off track over the weekend. Really fell off track.

I skipped my morning walks, blew off both of my planned workouts, ate a mountain of chips & guac on more than one occasion, drank a few too many spicy margaritas, and completely forgot to align my chakras. How could I?

Just kidding about aligning my chakras, although maybe that’s what I’m really missing...

It’s now Monday morning and I’m feeling behind, guilty, and a little swollen. Before I even get out of bed to start my day, a wave of anxiety crashes over me and my mind starts to race.

Why am I so exhausted? How can I look presentable for my 9am Zoom call? Ouch, my fingers are so swollen I can’t take my rings off. Did I remember to put my ice roller in the freezer? Do I even have time for my morning walk before I start work? Gosh that sounds hard. Can I recover from this? Did I ruin everything? Why did I have to throw this weekend away? Seriously? Again?

I know you’ve been there before.

You completely fall off track and instead of moving forward you get consumed by the past. You get stuck or worse, you completely revert to old behaviors or habits because you already messed up this bad, so why the heck not?

What if you could be better? Do better? Feel better? What if you never had to feel that way again?

This morning, I listened to Ed Mylett’s podcast featuring Benjamin Hardy where Benjamin was talking about 10x-ing your life. He shared different methods to do so and spent a good chunk of time discussing the importance of mastering your past to control your life in the present and future.

He said “Our present experience is fully shaped by our views from our past” and went on to explain that every day, all the time, we have the ability to determine if and how the past serves us.

But I’m consumed by my past, Benjamin! I messed up big! How can it possibly serve me?

Your past serves you when you decide that you’re different, better, smarter, more humble, self aware (the list goes on) than you were before it.

Let me be clear.

You are the chooser. You are in control.

I know it might be hard to understand what Benjamin Hardy meant and what I’m sharing with you now, so I’ll share two possible scenarios to bring this to life:

Scenario #1

You reflect on your past, learn lessons, and use your decisions and experiences to help you move forward. You actively create the present and the future by intentionally building your confidence and reinforcing your identity in a positive light.

Rewind back to my Monday morning after falling off track.

In this scenario, I give myself grace and compassion. I journal to understand why I made the decisions I did, and I identify where I went wrong. I write about the things I learned and the ways I can improve and all of the things I can do to support myself when next weekend comes around.

I go for my morning walk, schedule my workout for the day, make breakfast, and move on, knowing I am more experienced and more self aware because of my weekend off the rails.

I can do better next time, I tell myself. I will.

Scenario #2

You are mad, frustrated, and annoyed; self deprecating, full of resentment, and bitter. You self sabotage because making positive change seems unrealistic, pointless, and, let’s be real, hard. You are a victim of your own making.

In this case, my Monday morning self is feeling destructive. I let negative emotions run wild in my mind, and I talk down to myself and my body. It’s another bad body image day, another bad body image week.

I blow off my morning walk and entire morning routine because what’s one more day of being off track? I decide to try again next week, maybe even next month.

My past decisions haunt and control me, and I let the bad decisions compound into the present and future.

I hate myself, I tell myself as I look in the mirror. I just can’t.

So. Which one would you choose?

As I flash back to that Monday morning and so many Mondays before, I can see the weight I gave to my moments of imperfection. Time after time, they evolved into something bigger, like oxygen feeding a fire. Too many days that looked like scenario #2.

A missed workout that turned into ten. A meal out that became a binge. A bad body image day that fueled a bad body image month and countless decisions to self sabotage.

Not exactly the type of behavior that’s directly correlated to building a healthy, balanced life, but all important stops in my journey and excellent opportunities to learn and grow.

Creating positive change is hard. I get it. I’ve been on this journey of self acceptance and self compassion and personal growth since I was a teenager struggling with my body image and the size of my clothes.

Now I try to recognize my struggles, do my best to be intentional about the meaning I give to my past, and try to keep being better, doing better, and feeling better.

You can too.

The next time you mess up or fall off track, embody the actions in Scenario #1 and ask yourself the following questions:

• How am I different now than I was before?
• What can I do next time?
• What did I learn?
• How did I get better?
• How do I improve from here?

Take time to pause, reflect, journal, or talk through these questions with your partner, family or friends. Be intentional and grow through these moments.

In The Anthropocene Reviewed, John Green ended one of his essays with the following line: “while making meaning isn’t a choice, the kind of meaning can be.”

You’ll make plenty of mistakes on your journey to building strength, confidence and a healthy lifestyle. I can tell you that from experience. But you can determine their meaning.

You are the chooser. You are in control.

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your daily pick me up

Spend 5 minutes journaling through a time that you fell off track. Answer the following questions: How did you handle it? Where could you have course corrected? What did you do to get back on track? What could you learn from this experience? How can you support yourself better in the future?

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Repeat after me...

Say this affirmation out loud in the mirror 10 times every day. Write it in your journal over and over. Visualize it before bed. Feel it. Believe it.

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What I’m loving

​This episode of the Ed Mylett Show with Benjamin Hardy. There are so many golden nuggets that can be applied to different areas of your life.

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Here's to a life of learning and growing,

💕 Morgan

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