I used to be 5’2″ tall. At my 49th birthday, not only was I 5″1′, I weighed in at a whopping 151 lbs.

With a small bone structure, and having pleasantly weighed 115 lbs throughout the majority of my adult years, until my late thirties and through my forties, I’d never dreamed I would ever see 150 pounds. I was stunned. After all, I teach yoga, I’m active, I’m in wellness.

It snuck up on me, although I knew with being half Greek and with my hormones shifting, I had the potential to become obese. When I was 38 and had a sexy older boyfriend who worked out, I made sure to keep the weight off. When that relationship seemingly blew up in my face, the next 10 years were unpredictable.

I moved twice in my 40s – once from Arizona to Colorado, then again 15 months later, from Colorado to Ohio. These moves came at a time in my life that was stressful, I’d quit smoking cigarettes, taken up eating, and eventually went on an antidepressant – all of which, along with peri-menopause, caused weight gain and different varieties of stress.

Here I was, starting down the barrel of turning 50 on my next birthday, and I had to begin the struggle of my weight loss journey. I’d coached others through theirs, but had to be accountable to myself this time.

Being Accountable is the First Step & the First Rule of Weight Loss & Complete Wellness

After turning 49 and realizing I had to lose at least 30 pounds to hit a comfortable 120 lb for myself, I had to address the issue of keeping that weight off. I knew it was going to be a challenge to lose the weight at my age and an even bigger challenge to keep it off. I knew it would take a complete and permanent change in my eating habits.

Even more so, I did not have the kind of self discipline I had in my 20s when I could eat clean and run miles just for exercise to lose 10 pounds in 3 weeks if I needed to. Decades later, I’d forgotten to get on the scale for months and months, not even noticing the weight gain. I felt like I’d earned the right to enjoy life, eat and live how I wanted to. I would have never recommended that outlook for a client.

It’s a very prevalent human characteristic, especially in American culture, to know what is best for everyone else around us but to put the blinders on when it comes to our own behaviors. I had to become accountable to myself, and I knew it.

I had to engage in some real self talk. I knew that something had to change in my eating habits, and I also knew that it had to be a more permanent adjustment. I had to look at and address the other issues, like my stress level, my lifestyle and my medications. The accountability piece made me commit to adjusting the amount off food, type of food, and timing of the food I was going to consume.

I had to reconcile with myself that I was going to likely be grumpy and experience discomfort through these changes. This was true because I had to adjust a lot of things at the same time. I had dizziness and constipation from changing medications. I had breakouts constantly from detoxing. I had body odor for a few months straight while making these adjustments. I had spells of exhaustion. Yet, I know how to push through, and that becomes easier once the body adjusts.

There were many times throughout my 30s and 40s I made temporary commitments and lost weight to gain it back the next year. That seesaw effect is a huge part of the problem. Especially in American culture, our standards across the mainstream are pretty low. We love to spend money on what seems like a miracle cure so that we can lose weight and be physically fit without doing the work. Then we go into all the latest diet trends.

Eventually, we work at it and we do lose the weight. Yet, if we are just doing a “diet” to lose weight, we can celebrate the win and go on like the game is over, we’re the champion, and we deserve to relax in the off season. The older we get, the more this works against us and creates a bigger problem. It takes longer to lose the weight, it requires more effort and is harder to lose, it’s easier to gain back and if we really let ourselves go we will end up gaining back more than we lost to begin with.

Get Off the Hamster Wheel by Committing to Yourself

Having the life of your dreams and the physical health to enjoy it is possible for everyone. The way there can be found in the commitment you make to yourself. That’s the only commitment that counts.

In order to succeed at anything we are trying, we have to really want it. We have to want it more than just a little bit or the average amount. Until we get to a point of implosion, where we can no longer stand to wait one more moment to make a move on a commitment – we will stay on the hamster wheel.

The only harm in playing it safe and not stepping forward to make the changes in your life that would help you feel fulfilled, is that by the end of your life, it’s possible you may look back and have a few unfinished goals and unfulfilled promises. At the same time, we all still have time to create the life of our dreams.

The vision for where you would like to be in six months, one year or five to ten years is absolutely possible to formulate. The best thing about getting off the hamster wheel is using what you already have right now to start working toward your goals. So your first step is to define the goal.

Commit to making the changes you can make now to get what you want and then define what you want. Defining what you want is important. Are you just wanting to lose weight or are you wanting to tone up? Are you losing weight to feel better about yourself or are you working toward another goal along side it like reducing pain in back or knees, or something like increasing cardio to compete in a triathlon?

Write down your goal. Be specific. Then expand that vision by honing in on what the life of your dreams looks like one year from now. Include all areas of life, not just the weight loss and physical parts. In a year from now where are you at financially, with your relationships with friends and loved ones, with your work-life balance, etc?

Once you have your one-year vision, jot down a 5-year vision. With regard to your weight loss journey, the goal will be to keep the weight off for the rest of your life. No one wants to lose weight to gain it all back. Once you define it and see it in your mind, it’s time to take the deep dive into the next chapter.

Getting off the hamster wheel involves loosening up your preconceived notions about what is possible for you. It involves understanding and embracing that what you want to experience in your life may not be what others see as “successful” or fulfilling, and what others think about you is none of your business.

Marching to the Beat of Your Own Drum

One of the most valuable lessons I learned while going through this transformation is that I had to really own my style in every area of my life in order to truly get off the hamster wheel. I realized that I already appear successful by society’s standards, and I’m at least halfway through my life. Withe the second half of my life I want to be successful by my own standards.

I realize how fast time goes the older we get. I realized that I lived the first half of my life doing what was “normal” while I really wanted to be living out in the woods somewhere, in a cabin, with all my creative hobbies and crafts to enjoy. I want to be in nature and just enjoy peace and calm. It doesn’t look like the life I’ve been living.

When something in me shifted, I really thought about what I have left on my “bucket list”. I also realized the bucket list can change over time. Each day I had a goal for what I could do on that day to move toward carving out a new life. I started with small actions. Everything started to build on itself.

As I started to really dive into recreating myself yet again, some things fell right into place and some came apart. I learned to let that happen and to trust. This is what change is all about. Once I let go and watched my circumstances from the observer’s viewpoint – things shifted around and immediately there was a lot of movement in almost every area of my life.

It can be overwhelming when there are a lot of options to choose from. For me, it was essential to remain steady and calm while deciding quickly what will and will not work for me. Exploring options means opening up to the many options available and being able to practice discernment while trusting oneself to make the right decisions. This became instantly empowering for me.

As my weight was disappearing and my body started to feel more alive, my sense of self esteem expanded because I felt in control of my own life. I was succeeding in controlling my body, my mind and my emotions and all of a sudden the outside world started responding to me differently. In some ways this is good, but having more power is also heavy sometimes.

One of the downsides of finding empowerment through reaching goals is that it’s on public display, especially with weight loss, and you absolutely can’t control how others react. People will begin to give you power over them in ways you may not want. As you succeed, friends may become put off because you’ve changed and they weren’t ready for it. You may appear arrogant with your new found self confidence.

As I changed, I felt steady and I also knew it might look unsteady to the observer. When we commit to ourselves, we find out that there are people in our lives that will support us and will help us through giving good advice. We will have some people who judge us and want to tell us they’re concerned, and give us unsolicited advice. The point is that if we do hold steady with confidence to our own vision, we will get there and what others think is none of our business.

What Other People Think of You is None of Your Business

With weight loss or with quitting smoking, for example, it’s almost better not to tell people around you what you’re doing and what your goals are. While it’s fun to have encouragement, the fuel for success is going to come from your own inner drive.

Establishing your own routine, encouraging yourself, and complimenting yourself is actually a very effective way to maintain consistency. One of the biggest challenges when we embark on our next chapter, is having expectations that the world around us will support what we’re doing and help us succeed. We get on an adrenaline high and we want others to get in the race with us.

When others don’t get excited, or aren’t there to cheer us on, we can feel alone and disappointed. It leads to feeling unsupported. It’s leads to us giving up and maybe going and having drinks and snacks with the same friends who aren’t into personal growth right now and don’t have any energy or blessings to put towards ours.

Inevitably, there will also be the frenemies who will start out encouraging you and they seem happy for you when you’re struggling to lose the pounds or to make the next thing happen in your life, yet, when you start to succeed and gain momentum, they’ll find a reason to brow beat you. This is a normal part of our culture, albeit very disappointing that we do this to one another.

Before establishing any goal, it’s very helpful to do a week long or a month long meditation or mantra daily, 5 minutes per day, to rewire your mind to know and stay steady with the core premise, “What people think of me is none of my business.” Then any time during the week or month when you start to worry or you get your energy zapped by snarky comments, you come back to that statement.

Success on any level brings about reactions from other actors. There isn’t any way to avoid or control how others react, and when we change and grow our world changes to accommodate. Sometimes people will be there to support you and compliment you, and sometimes people will go behind your back and try to destroy what you have worked hard for – keep going, don’t take it personally, and be your own source of love and support.

Others will try to sabotage us, but the biggest road block to meeting goals is the saboteur within us.

Watch Out for the Saboteur

We all have to potential to sabotage our own success and in fact, we are responsible for our own successes and failures no matter what or who played into our situation. Ever trust the wrong person and suffered the consequences of financial loss or property damage? It’s so easy to get angry at the pure ignorance and disrespect that comes along with interacting within society.

Yet, when we’re focused on meeting our own goals, building our dream and being accountable to self – we are responsible for the fact that we lacked a certain sense of discernment or went forward when we were out of alignment and we suffered the consequences. If we want our success, we’re going to move forward and change, and that means being carefully aware of where we are stepping.

When you’re setting out on that goal of weight loss, in the beginning it takes a push to get started and to get past the first three weeks without relapsing into too many cheat days and late night snacks. Once you overcome that saboteur and you’re on a roll, gaining momentum, being consistent and the weight starts to come off, there will still be decisions that can either throw you off or keep you on track.

There will be holiday meals, birthday parties, graduations, weddings and various other social get togethers throughout the year. Distractions and a lack of self discipline can be the saboteurs that come in and pull your attention to the food, drink and socializing that take away from good sleep, time to workout and the attention to eating clean food.

Within the weight loss or within any goal, you’ll do best by being your own best friend. This was one thing that worked for me in the beginning of my transformation, above all else.

Be Your Own Best Friend

We do need a support system to succeed. I learned that too. I’m highly independent, so convincing myself that I absolutely could not make any dream come true without a support system was an internal struggle. After all, I’d learned from past mistakes that if I wanted something done I had to do it myself. While this might seem true, there’s no way to survive without support.

If you think about it, you’d be naked right now if not for others. You’d have to cover your private parts with leaves and vines. A baby won’t survive without the support and nurturing of adults that care for it. Yet, we can have a big family around and a bunch of friends and coworkers and still feel completely unsupported in life. Emotional support is something that is wonderful to receive from others, but essential to give to ourselves.

Most of us have had that experience where we thought we were going to get support on our next new thing and were so excited and feeling good about life. Yet, blah! Blam! Ugh! We suddenly have an argument with a loved one, whether it be spouse, relative or friend – and we sink into a feeling of hopelessness and all the positive, life-giving energy of our new dream fizzles into soot. There we are again, feeling so alone.

In any goal, any recreation of self, on the journey of self growth, we have to understand that the self esteem and solid foundation comes from within. It does not come from without. Lose weight, look hot, and half of your friends will secretly or openly hate on you because they haven’t done the same for themselves. Some amazing people on your life will genuinely be happy for you. And it’s most likely that it’s a way bigger deal to you than it is to anyone who is supporting you or not.

We have to understand that everyone is on their own path to create and recreate their lives. Their dealings should not affect us and their circumstances are not about us. So when you’re on your health kick, it’s better for everyone if you don’t march around your people and lecture everyone on how they need to be on the health kick too. Sometimes we try to get energy from the outside world to keep ours snowballing, and this can lead to a crash and burn effect.

Our journey is ours. So is our perception and the strength we have to navigate through our own challenges. We don’t know what is best for anyone else and they don’t know what is best for us. We all want to tell one another what to do. This is why reaching goals tends to be an obstacle course, we throw in unnecessary distractions by forgetting that the focus is on us, our growth, our journey. If we want to get there, we have to stop getting distracted by what others are or are not doing.

We won’t get anywhere by expecting everyone to stop what they are doing and start taking actions that revolve around our next set of priorities. We literally have to provide ourselves with everything we need to succeed and be thankful when someone is there to help out or offer extra support. Expecting it from others leads to negative feelings. In order to stay in the life-giving energy of our vision, we have to give ourselves the love and support others couldn’t give us along the way.

Write yourself an encouragement note. Write yourself a “I’m proud of you for…” letter. Have mantras or internal dialogue that lets your human self know that you love them, you got their back, they’re safe. The You that is loving you is your actual awareness and soul self, and it tells that human self – the one with the body and the emotions and the rambling thoughts.

When I shifted to be my own support, and to be my own best friend – my transition accelerated. It was a relief to not have to really rely on anyone else for the support or encouragement. Then, when someone would tell me they were proud of me or happy for me I would truly appreciate it. It also helped to support myself through the frienemies who I wanted to be happy for me, but who react in emotionally immature ways.

Without learning that I had to both be my own best friend plus rely on others at the same time to succeed, I think I’d still be on he seesaw, back and forth with my weight. I’d be a rollercoaster up and down with all of my priorities, goals and ideas had I not honed in on this premise.

I was able to lose my 30 pounds in six months because I made the commitment to myself, I owned my actions and reactions and I learned to be my best friend while I remained both accountable and true to myself.