“If YOU can do it, I can do it!”

Said my friend as we were walking along the river trail.

She had been experimenting with intermittent fasting and finding joy in daily exercise and strength training.

She had found a pattern that works well for her and was noticing the results, as her clothing was getting looser and the numbers on the scale were going down. Here’s looking at you,

@Stacey Hopner

My heart lit up…absolutely, that’s it! If I can do it, YOU can do it.

Anyone can do it, really.

She was talking about letting go of weight, naturally, and with a sense of ease instead of struggle.

Here’s the thing…

I’m a person who is often messy, frequently disorganized, and arguably lazy.

I’d prefer to think of myself more as energy efficient than lazy- I prefer not to expend energy unless I absolutely have to. But we can debate that some other time!

Not saying any of this to put myself down. I have a well-defined self-love muscle and accept myself completely as I am, even as I work on being better.

Just pointing out that I’m not perfect. And you don’t have to be perfect either to have amazing results in your life!

If I was able to find a way to let go of over 80 pounds of excess weight and keep most of it off, besides some muscle weight I gained via strength training, you can absolutely do that too, and you can do even better than I did!

If you choose to.

16 years ago, I used this principle with great success…

It was the summer before I met my husband. At that time, I had never dated anyone for more than 8 months. Either they would get bored and be done, or I would get bored and be done. It was like having weight on the scale that never budges…8 months was my number.

A part of me thought that I just wasn’t the “marriage” type…all the dating results I had experienced in my life so far pointed in that direction. But, another part of me really liked the idea of being with someone for life, and possibly even having kids.

Maybe I wasn’t good enough to get married, that was my secret fear.

Then, I started seeing a bunch of high school classmates on Facebook. They were sharing their wedding pictures and posing with their kids and husbands.

The now married girls in the Facebook pictures weren’t prettier than I was. They weren’t smarter than I was.

I thought to myself…if they can do it, I can do it! Why not me?

Only a few short months later (maybe 2?), I met and started dating the wonderful man who would eventually become my husband.

We have now been together 16 years. I’m grateful that I gave myself the gift of believing that marriage is possible for me. It all started with the thought…if they can do it, I can do it!

What’s one area of your life that you can apply this idea to?

Maybe it’s related to letting go of weight and living in your fittest body, maybe it’s something TOTALLY different.

Think of someone who’s living a kind of life that you would love to live.

Can you allow yourself to explore the idea…”if they can do it, I can do it?”

Can you allow yourself to get inspired and motivated ( instead of envious?) when you see someone doing something amazing or worthwhile?

It might just completely change your life, like it did mine :)

Would love to hear your thoughts in the comments!

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