Who Are You Afraid of Losing?

Have you ever noticed how, when we talk about becoming a new version of ourselves, we act like the old version was simply a problem to solve?

But she wasn’t. She was your person for a long time.

She got you through things. She learned how to survive and how to belong. She learned how to protect herself, how to soothe herself, and how to make life feel manageable. Those things are important.

Those things served a purpose.

Some of her patterns may no longer serve you, but they usually existed for a reason.

For me, the pivotal point came when I got sick of my own shit.

Sounds dramatic. But it’s really not. It’s just the truth. It was 2018.

I liked to drink. I liked to eat whatever I wanted. I liked doing what felt good in the moment without thinking too hard about what it was doing to me long term.

That version of me wasn’t terrible. She was actually pretty fun. She was damn sarcastic. She was a smart ass. She cared deeply about the things that mattered to her.

But I knew I couldn’t keep living that way forever.

At some point, wanting to change became stronger than wanting to stay comfortable.

I quit drinking. I cleaned shit up. I lost around 45 pounds, but I lost more than weight along the way.

I lost routines, habits, coping mechanisms, excuses, and a version of myself I had known for a very long time.

And even though I wanted the change, leaving her behind was still uncomfortable.

Because she was familiar. Familiar is known.  And there is real fear in letting go of what you know, even when you know it isn’t where you want to stay.

That push and pull is real.

I knew her rules. I knew how she responded. I knew how she had fun, how she avoided discomfort, and how she kept life moving without asking too many hard questions.

Even when she kept me stuck, she felt safe because I knew her.

That is the part people skip when they talk about change.

I see this all the time with my clients.

They want to change. They want to feel better, become stronger, improve their health, and stop repeating the same patterns.

But they are also afraid of what they might lose along the way.

Who will they be if food is no longer how they comfort themselves?

How will they socialize if drinking isn’t always part of it?

What happens when they start saying no, setting boundaries, or making choices the people around them don’t understand?

They want the new life, but parts of the old life still feel like home.

That doesn’t mean they don’t want it badly enough.

It means change is more complicated than simply deciding to do better.

Sometimes changing feels like betrayal.

You want the new life, but you also have to grieve the life you knew. You lose habits, identities, relationships, excuses, and ways of coping.

Even positive change creates loss.

Eventually, I came to terms with the fact that the old me had taken me as far as she could.

The new me was still me. I was still sarcastic. Still a smart ass. Still passionate. Still someone who cared deeply and felt things intensely.

I hadn’t lost my personality at all.

I had stopped letting the parts of me that wanted immediate comfort make every decision.

My health improved. My energy improved. My confidence improved.

My life got bigger, not smaller.

I didn’t have to hate the old me in order to become someone new.

I could appreciate her. I could understand her. I could even miss parts of her.

But I didn’t need to go back and become her again.

Maybe reconciliation looks like saying, I understand why you became this way. I appreciate what you carried.

And I don’t need you to run my life anymore.

She got me here.

She just wasn’t the person who could take me where I wanted to go next.

Most people exercise for now. They want to lose weight now. Fit into the jeans now. Look better in pictures now. Or survive swimsuit season.

Which swimsuit season? It’s July. In Australia it’s December. Somewhere, it’s always swimsuit season. That’s marketing, not reality.

There’s nothing wrong with those goals. They’re just micro to me.

I do it now for then. I’m 62.

I still lift heavy. I still teach cycling. I still chase goals that some people think belong to younger women. I’m not trying to prove I haven’t gotten older. I definitely have.

The point is, I’m investing in the years I haven’t lived yet. I’m not trying to outrun aging. I’m preparing for it.

I strength train now because I want to carry my own groceries when I’m 80.

I ride my bike now because I want my heart to keep showing up for me decades from now.

I eat protein now because muscle is my retirement plan.

I prioritize sleep because I want my brain to work just as well in twenty years as it does today.

I move my body because I plan to keep participating in my life.

Every workout is a deposit. Every balanced meal is a deposit. Same with every walk. Same with every good night of sleep. Same with every time I keep showing up instead of throwing in the towel.

They are all deposits into the life I’m building.

We spend decades planning for retirement. We save money. We invest. We think about where we will live. But how many people spend the same amount of time investing in the body they will actually live in?

Your body is your retirement account. You can’t withdraw strength you never invested. One day you will wake up with whatever you have built.

Strength or fragility. Confidence or hesitation. Energy or exhaustion. Freedom or dependence. It’s not something to take lightly. The choices you make today don’t disappear tomorrow.

The things we do, do things to us. Today’s habits and behaviors become tomorrow’s life.

That’s why I don’t think about workouts as something to check off a list. I think about them as votes. Votes for the person I want to be in ten, twenty or thirty years.

What kind of 80 year old am I building?

That’s the question that matters.

It’s not what the scale says today or whether my abs are visible. It’s not whether I skipped dessert.

It’s what kind of life am I making possible? Healthy aging is not luck. It’s built years before you need it.

I get asked about why I still lift. Why I still ride and why I still pay attention to what I eat. Not only is my health and my future important to me, but so is my history.

My dad was gone at 60.

I don’t know what tomorrow holds for me. None of us do.

But I do know I want to stack the deck in my favor.

I want options. I want to travel if I decide to travel. I want to hike if I decide to hike. I want to be able to get down on the floor and then get back up without having to think about it. I want to keep learning new things. I want to keep saying yes to adventures. I want to keep living independently for as long as I possibly can. I don’t want longevity without capability. I want both.

I’m not doing this because I’m afraid of getting older. I’m doing it because I plan on getting older. And I want those years to be full of life. Not just years that are added to my life, but life that is added to my years.

So no, I don’t do it for now. I do it now for then.

Future me is counting on the choices I make today.

Tomorrow’s life is built by today’s deposits. Today’s habits become tomorrow’s life.

Today, I get another chance to make one.

The Ten Minutes Count

Every morning, I give myself ten minutes.

Coffee. Birds. Quiet.

That’s it.

No phone. No food logging. No writing out my get shit done list. No mentally rehearsing the day before the day even starts.

And this morning, I caught myself trying to turn that ten minutes into something useful or productive.

I thought, “I could log my food right now. I could make my list. I could get a jump on the day.”

And then I stopped myself.

Shut the fuck up and just stop. Remember why.

I give myself those ten minutes for a reason.

They are not empty time and they are not wasted time.  They are not a gap that needs to be filled with one more task.

They are mine.

And honestly, this is exactly how it starts. Do you feel like this?

The scurrying and the hurrying. The trying to get ahead before the day even starts.

You start the morning already rushing yourself and already pushing. Already thinking about what needs to be done next. Already stacking one thing on top of another in your head.

And somehow, even when you are doing more, you feel more behind.

That is the trap. That’s the bullshit we tell ourselves.

Because when the day starts with hurry, hurry becomes the theme of the day. You carry it into everything. You drink the coffee, but you do not really taste it. You hear the birds, but your brain is already halfway into the task list.

You are physically sitting there, but mentally you are already running.

And that  was my whole reason for starting to do this. To slow the fuck down.

Those 10 minutes set my intention. They ground me.

They remind me that I am allowed to enter the day without sprinting into it. I am allowed to have a few minutes before I start handing myself over to work, coaching, decisions, messages, lists, people, and problems.

We have gotten so used to multitasking that stillness can feel lazy. Sitting with coffee can feel unproductive. Listening to the birds can feel like something we have to earn after everything else is done. So typical and so common and I am so done with that.

Your brain needs space. Your nervous system needs a minute. Your life needs small places where you are allowed to exist without performing, producing, fixing, planning, tracking, or optimizing.

And that is what I thought about this morning when my mind started drifting into other things.

It is only ten fucking minutes. Chill the fuck out. Ten minutes of quiet will not ruin my day. It helps my day.

It might be the reason I move through the day with a little more patience, a little more clarity, and a little less angst.

I do not have to squeeze every drop of productivity out of my morning.

I am allowed to have a few minutes that are just mine.

So I can drink the coffee. So I can listen to the birds. So I can remember that I do not need to start the day already chasing it.

The lists and the work will be there. The logging will be there. It is okay to let it wait. The day asks plenty from me already.

I give myself ten minutes before I hand myself over to everything else.

That is the point.

It is just ten minutes.

And I am allowed to keep it.