Dealing With the Naysayers

One of the things that came as a complete surprise to me when I was losing weight was the number of people who decided it was their calling to counsel me about my weight loss.  For over twenty years I walked this earth as a morbidly obese woman and no one other than my doctor EVER talked to me about my weight.  No one!  No one ever expressed concern about my health or tried to encourage me to not take that extra piece of dessert or that fourth slice of pizza.  Not a single person.  Ever.

So imagine my surprise when I was happily losing weight and feeling better than I had in years and people started pulling me aside to express their concern.  They thought I was losing too fast, that being on less than 1,000 calories a day wasn't healthy, that it wasn't healthy to be using prepackaged products instead of "real" food.  Every person who talked to me had their own list of concerns which they felt duty-bound to share.  The cries of concern became almost deafening as I got within 40 pounds of my goal.  That's right - 40 pounds, a weight that still had me firmly in the overweight category (just under a 30 BMI).  People began telling me that it was time to stop, that I'd lost enough; they expressed concern that I was becoming anorexic and wouldn't know when to stop.  I was about 180 pounds when the concern kicked into high gear, and at 5'5" inches, anorexic was hardly a fitting description!

Many of you have already experienced this same kind of negative feedback.  If you haven't yet, get ready . . . it's coming!  I'm not saying this to frighten you or, heaven forbid, discourage you - I'm sharing this now so that you will be prepared when it happens.

I read an article a while back that brilliantly addressed how to achieve personal excellence in the face of negativity.  Rather than try to condense and reword this article, I'm going to simply give you a link so you can read it in its entirety.  My blog today presented the problem; the link I'm giving you provides what I think is a terrific solution.  This will involve a bit more reading, but I believe you'll find it worth your time!  Here's the link:  http://themindsetmaven.com/excellence-vs-negativity/?awt_l=84ldk&awt_m=3a4JHWKjsb.WKz_

We can't control the things people say to us, but we can choose how we respond and we can choose whether or not we'll allow the negativity to impact us.  Choose wisely :-)