Flipping the Switch

A friend of mine mentioned that term to me today. He asked me--At what point had I "flipped the switch" regarding my personal commitment to my health and fitness and how did I do it? I have been thinking about that a lot since our conversation. It's like he opened my proverbial can of self-transformational worms.

So in this can of transformational worms I find a lot of stuff. Digging around I pull out "self awareness and self esteem," "will power and motivation," and even a few handfuls of "direction, planning and know-how." I am not sure how I got from flipping a switch (electrical) to worms in cans (ugh) but there you go.

"Flipping the switch" is something that everyone gets and can visualize. It's going from off to on, from the past to the present, from passive to active, it's the big "aha!" moment.

When I think about my own journey and what kick-started me into action I have to start at the loss of my brother. My brother Chuck died at age 52 of a blood pressure-related heart attack while body surfing with his son in the ocean off a California beach. His death was sudden and unexpected and shocked me and everyone who knew him. However for me, after the shock came the realization--he was overweight and out of shape and had taxed his body beyond its ability to recover. Once the initial grief and responsibilities of my brother's death were past I was left with only one constant, depressing, fearful thought--I was next.

That thought sang out in my brain like a tune that gets stuck. Not only a horrible affirmation, but in this case a ringing truth like an alarm bell. For me that thought flipped my switch. It didn't flip all at once and it didn't flip into some permanent and unalterable state. Moving in the right direction isn't a one time decision--and that's what makes it so hard. Moving in the right direction is a never-ending series of good decisions. It takes some serious moxie.

I think something that was vital was the moment I realized that the journey was going to be difficult and that all this sense of challenge I felt and hard work it was taking was real. It wasn't that I had a bad attitude about it, or that I was weak or that I had no willpower--it was simply that changing one's life is always complicated. I relaxed some when I realized that it was going to be hard as hell sometimes--and that was okay.