If You Don’t Like It, Change It. If You Can’t, Accept It and Move On.

Fitness wasn’t the easiest decision for me to make, since most of my life I had been tucked under my thick quilt of excuses, comprised of an intricate patchwork of rationalization, denial, and blaming others for anything bad that ever happened in life; thus allowing me to avoid all the reasons that led me to being so unhealthy to begin with. So I knew if I was going to do this, if I was going to start working out and eating right, I’d have to give up my comfort, my entitlement, my “woe is me” attitude. I would have to fold up the quilt. This also meant I was going to have to take hold of the one thing that I, for the most part, had successfully evaded my entire life: Responsibility. Eek.

But getting a handle on my health forced me to find my confidence and gather momentum to get all other areas of my life sorted out. Actually, being fit suddenly started to do all kinds of crazy things for me. I even had this idea of starting a business around it. But more important than all of that, is fitness taught me how ain’t nothing in life as powerful as personal responsibility and taking charge of everything you can, right along with everything you can’t. That if you don’t like it, change it. If you can’t, accept it and move on.

Your life really does begin to get a whole lot more exciting when you determine to take control of it, to make everything–all your decisions and actions, successes and screw ups–truly your own. It gets harder, too, in a lot of ways, don’t get me wrong. For example, you can’t make excuses as much, or play the blame game, anymore. Because everything is on you, now. And that’s a good thing; a great thing, in fact. Excuses are just a way of shirking responsibility and/or relinquishing control. They weigh you down. And blaming is just as pointless and a burden (yes, even when it’s merited). So let’s forget about all that. They obviously aren’t helping us any.

If you don’t like it, change it, if you can’t, accept it and move on. That’s responsibility. That’s assuming ownership over your life and getting to decide the direction you want to go. Of course you won’t be able to change everything or assume control in all the areas you want. And that’s why we must also learn to use the tools of acceptance and self love and even just being able to say “ah, to hell with it,” from time to time.

But you’d be surprised at how much you can affect when you try. So try. Because while the quilt of non-responsibility may be comforting, it also suffocates. You’re really only dying under there. So kick your legs and twist and turn until you’re out from under it. Throw one hell of a fit, if you have to. And know that while the realization of “Hey, this is your life, and it’s time to own it,” can be a bit of a shock, at first, so, we can be sure, was the complete moronic surprise of coming out of the womb.

And, you know, this actually makes a lot of sense to me. Because only when you assume authority over your life, only when take accountability for every single little speck of it–your health, your career, your family, your friends–only when you stop blaming the circumstances you were born into, and start accepting that what you really need, honestly, is to just suck it up and get a move on, to spit on your hands and shake a leg, to do the work and learn to love the interminable and often infernal process of self-improvement, are you given the chance to be born again. Only this time, you won’t need a blanket.

Strong ON!

– Pat

PS – I’m on Instagram now.

PPS – My Inner Circle is pretty cool, too.

Final PS – So are all these workouts.