#38: Respect Yourself

Why are you trying to lose weight? Why are you trying to gain better health?
Are these things you do for yourself? To build up your self-esteem? To energize your ego? If so, you're on your way to success.

We shouldn't begin our journey to fitness to please others, whether they be our spouse, relatives, co-workers or friends. Doing so will ultimately not be personally satisfying.

It is nearly impossible to fulfill the varying expectations of other people. Trying to appease them and their hopes for us will generate in us a great amount of frustration when we fail to change enough to satisfy them. Trying to conform to someone else's idea of how they want us to look will lead to us becoming demoralized when they change their minds about how they want us to be.

Instead, our journeys to better health should begin with respect for ourselves. We should acknowledge that this is something we do just for us. Our mental image of how we want to be is the image that counts and is going to allow us to attain our goals and ultimately be satisfied with the new us. We will not allow someone else to control us and decide how we should look.

Have respect for yourself. Make this journey a major gift you give yourself, with minor gifts of achievement along the way.

This is what we do for us.