A Weighty Issue

"The greatest barrier to success is the fear of failure." Sven Gorren Eriksson

So, I have a confession. I live in fear. Of a lot of things. But mostly I am afraid to do new or challenging things because I am terrified I won't succeed.

Examples:

Even though I want to enroll in seminary, I won't because I am afraid I will fail Hebrew and Greek.

Even though I need/want to lose weight, and have for awhile, I am afraid to eat better and work out consistently because I am afraid the weight won't come off.

Even though I desperately want to write a novel, I am afraid to write it because I am afraid no one will want to read it.

Now, I ask myself, where did this fear come from? Growing up, I was pretty successful at everything I did. I made mostly A's, I made almost every sports team I tried out for, I even made cheerleader my senior year without any experience. I just fearlessly tried out and made it (on a dare, I might add.)

We all are afraid to do things, but mine may be an acute case. I am not sure. So, I am going to my "blogerapy." Instead of paying for a shrink, I am writing it out, and seeing if any of you in the blog world have an opinion.

This is where I think my acute fear came from.

A few years ago, before we moved to Los Angeles, I accepted a job that ended up being one of the worst jobs a person could have. I was a Varsity Cheerleading Coach. And, I put that in all caps because it deserves to be capitalized. Anyone who would take above said job has to be a little crazy.

In walks Whitney Davis.

Bottom line, I was naive.

The thing was, I really wanted this job as a high school English teacher, but it came with a caveat. I had to be the Varsity Cheerleading coach as well. So, unbeknownst as to how bad it could be, at the age of 24 years, I became afraid of everything because I didn't know how to deal with the magnitude of failure I experienced in my first "real world" job.

I was confident my students would love me, that my cheer girls would love me, because I was a likable person. Wrong. They ate me alive. I had a tough time balancing all that came with being a new teacher (which I might add, involved a second period class full of delinquents that were repeating English II for the third or fourth time because they had failed all the other teachers), and all the demands and rigors of being the head of the cheerleading program and the varsity coach of a nationally competitive squad.

My long list of failures began two weeks after school started when a fist fight broke out in the above mentioned 2nd period class over a tube of lip gloss. Yes, a fist fight over lip gloss. And my list of failures hit a nice climax with half of my cheerleaders getting kicked off the squad for smuggling alcohol into my apartment during a team function. Wrap it up in a nice little bow with my department head telling me she believed I was a good teacher deep down but "sure as hell wasn't seeing it" and you had me crying every day, wishing I could find a hole to dig into and never come out of again.

Praise Jesus my husband got into UCLA and that I got pregnant because that guaranteed me a one way ticket out of there, but as a result, I feel like all I learned from that experience was fear. I tried everything in my power to be successful a that job, and nothing worked.

Well, the times they are a changing. I am tired of living in fear. My good friend, Kelli Kirkland Powers, has an awesome blog, called "Success is Relative" (www.successisrelative.com). Yesterday, after a nine year battle of infertility, she gave birth to a beautiful baby boy named Apollo Joseph Powers. Now, on Kelli's blog, she celebrates what she calls "Fearless Fridays."

Here is what she posited:

I thought I’d challenge myself, and all of my wonderful readers, to do one fearless thing every Friday and share their stories. I think the more we confront fear head on the less of it we’ll have and hopefully the more success and freedom we’ll experience.

So, today, she definitely has her fearless item covered as she is caring for her newborn son. And today, I am going to share with all of you what my "Fearless Friday" item is going to be.

After 4 years of being afraid that I can not lose my pregnancy weight (ever since Caroline was born), I am giving myself 106 days to accomplish my goal.

Fact: I was the skinniest I ever was on my wedding day (132 pounds with a 28 inch waist)

Fact: I gained 42 pounds with Caroline (I got up to 177 pounds!)

Fact: Out of that 42 pounds, I only lost 25 of it. At one point, I did get back down to 145 but it quickly came back on after I quit nursing.

Fact: I just had another baby. I only gained 19 pounds, and I have already lost all of that weight, so I am right back to where I started after Caroline. This is a good thing.

Fact: I am turning the "Dirty Thirty" this year, or as my husband calls it, the "flirty Thirty", and my sister in law Julie's wedding is near that impending day.

Fact: At 9 weeks post partum, I am a 5'5, 152 pound woman, with a 35 inch waist! (which, upon doing internet research, found out that means I am "high risk" whatever that means!)

I WANT TO LOOK GOOD AT THE WEDDING! So, I am committed to being purposeful about losing this weight and just being healthy again.

So, here are my goals:

1) To lose at least 3-5 inches off my waist.

2) To lose at least 15-17 pounds.

This is not going to turn into a weight loss blog, but I will keep you updated as to how I am doing. I have T-MINUS 106 days to accomplish this goal. As I mentioned at the beginning of this post, I am scared to death. I am afraid I will not stay motivated, I am afraid I won't be able to keep up momentum, I am afraid of a lot of things, but this is all about attitude, and allowing the Lord to help me.

So, please pray for me to stay motivated. The thing is, I look at myself in the mirror and don't like what I see necessarily, but I also don't think I look that bad either (for having two kids that is). So, sometimes, as badly as I want to lose weight, it is hard to be motivated because I think I could be so much worse.

So, i am committing to at least 30 minutes to an hour a day of some sort of exercise 5 days a week. (I have to be reasonable as I have two young kids).

Also, no more fast food, which is a major issue for me. Sometimes, I am surprised I am not a tank. And eating clean, nutritional food.

As a disclaimer, I do understand that I am nursing and am not going to cut a ton of calories, so no worries there, I am just changing my diet to healthier food choices, which I do enjoy. It just about taking the time to have the right choices available.

If you have any words of encouragement or ideas about how to lose weight post partum, throw your ideas at me. I want to be successful at this. And I will be proud of me in 106 days when I accomplish this. I will post pictures as I go!

Now that this challenge is out there for the world to read, I am on it. This IS a weighty issue.