Find Another Angle

Yesterday someone sent me a picture they had taken of me. When I looked at it I didn’t notice all the good things about it. I didn’t look at the progress I’ve made. I didn’t acknowledge the gains. I didn’t celebrate the wins.

I zeroed in on one part of it I didn’t like, and became extra critical of myself. The irony is, it was something I had previously been excited about! I had been proud of how far I had come. I had been excited to see the difference in that area over these past few months. One picture, from one angle though was all it took to deflate me.

I started mentally beating myself up. I thought, “I should be further along by this point.” “All this hard work and I don’t see any difference.” Then I started thinking of what I could add to my workouts to fix this, how I could tweak my eating plan, and a million other thoughts.

The truth is, there were some other photos taken yesterday from other angles. And in those, that body part looked just fine. My progress pictures show the gains I’ve made. And if I look in the mirror I can see the difference. One part of a picture from one angle doesn’t tell the whole story. So why is that what I fixated on? And why didn’t I look at the good parts instead and get excited about those?

Maybe you do that too? Maybe you see a glimpse of yourself from one angle, and become critical of what you think doesn’t look good instead of realizing that another angle tells a different story?
How do we fix this?

For me, I made myself look at that picture again. This time I found the parts that were good and chose not to think about the flaws I saw. This journey I’m on isn’t just about transforming my physical body. I’m changing some mindsets and mentalities as well! And you can too!

Take another look, find another angle and instead of focusing on the flaws celebrate the good in you!