Stop waiting for the right time.

Stop making your happiness conditional.

Stop making your self acceptance conditional.

Now is the only time we have.

So often I hear people using phrases such as:

“When I lose xxkg I’ll be happy”
“I’ll be happy when I get to xx stone”,
“When I lose the weight I’d like to xxx”
“when I get fitter I’d like to take up xxx”
“when I retire I will xxx”
“If I were younger I’d do xxx”

What if those days never come? What if you never reach your (possibly made up) goal weight? What if you Don’t make it to retirement, or don’t get much time when you do?

What if you could have done the thing you wanted right from the outset and it made you happy along the way?

Happiness is not a destination, it is not conditional on getting to a certain weight/age/size/income. It is in the moments we encounter along the way!

It is all too easy to fall into the habit of waiting until certain conditions have been met before we allow ourselves to feel a certain way or do a certain thing.

I think someone Latin (well who spoke Latin because I don’t think you can actually be Latin) coined a phrase which perfectly describes what I am going to say:

Carpe Diem, yes that’s the one, seize the day! Do the thing eat the food notice the happy moments!

Or to put it another way:

By which I mean, stop letting self imposed conditions hold you back. I know there are cases where you can’t do something for very real reasons, I am not talking about those.

I am talking about the obstacles you put in your own way. Some of these are routed in fear, (believe me I know about those) and some are driven by society and diet culture (yes I know about those too), some of them are just based on the belief that one day you’ll have more time.

If this current pandemic has taught us anything it is that no-one has any idea what is around the corner and we can’t rely on having more time. Seriously we have no idea what we are going to be dealing with next week, next year or even tomorrow so it is time we realised that now is the only time we can be certain of. I realise that during a pandemic when we are all on lockdowns and stay at home orders, is not the best time to start new things, especially if those new things involve going out, but if you think about it, you might find a way round it.

Maybe, if you have always wanted to go to the gym but didn’t feel fit enough, start now, at home using online classes or downloadable workouts, then when the gyms reopen you might feel more confident.

Maybe if you have always wanted to take up a crafting skill, there will be an online course being run that is not actually as daunting as walking into a room full of strangers! Same goes for non crafty things too, I have heard of online martial arts classes, online music lessons even online clog dancing workshops.

I am not saying people have to take up new skills. I am not saying people need to be busy and doing something all the time if that is not what they want. All I am saying, is if you want to do something, do it, don’t put conditions or barriers in your own way if you don’t need to.

To add weight to my argument, I am going to commit to something that I have been wanting to do for ages, but have been putting barriers in my own way.

As soon as classes restart, I am going to go back to Savate. (French kickboxing…its brilliant, look here for info)

I’ll keep you posted!