Your Failure Is Judged by You Alone
Failure makes you feel judged — especially with diet and exercise. But the real judge is you.
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I am a month from turning 49 years old.
Since I was a child, I have been overweight to one degree or another.
Around age 10, my mom enrolled me in a program at a local hospital to help me take off the weight. It was semi-successful.
When I was 13, my grandfather bought me contact lenses — on the condition that I lose weight. I think it was 20 pounds. And I did it — but the weight was back soon after.
When I was 25 or so, I had to race across an airport to catch a flight. It took about 2 hours for me to fully catch my breath after that — and I joined a gym and dropped weight. I found it again, of course.
In my early 30s, between diet and exercise, I dropped below 200 pounds for the first time in a decade. But then my routine changed, and the weight was put back on.
Failure when it comes to my weight has been a constant companion. And I know full-well that I’m not alone here. Over and over, you choose this plan, take that course of action, use extreme measures and get results. Then, before you know it, you face failure as the asshole scale judges, and you need to up the size of your clothes again.
Every time you fail it feels like you’re being judged. The world is looking at you and saying, sarcastically, “Well done, dumbass. You remain a fat fuck and always screw this up. You are being weighed, measured, and deemed wanting.”
But in truth — nobody is making that judgment call. Nobody, that is, but you.
The judge of failure is you
With the failure of each diet and exercise program, there is a sense of shame. The failure to drop the weight and then keep it off permanently is disempowering as all get out.
