The success obstacle

A lot of the stuff out there about goals talks about how to deal with the inevitable obstacles.  One “obstacle” that gets a little less press is success.

Some of us have people in our lives who are invested in us remaining as we are.  When we start to grow, they worry.  When we don’t act like we used to, when we pass on the cookies, when we unconsciously outpace them on the sidewalk, they fret.  In most cases, these tensions can be worked out, but that they exist at all explains why people who choose to get fit with their partners have more success:  everyone is changing together.  Even friends can feel threatened when we become more awesome.  We may find that one of our new workout skills is reassurance.  (Or, if we discover that our friends are less interested in what is good for us than we hoped, we work out our boundary-setting and our finding-new-friends skills.)

It can be even scarier when our success freaks us out all by ourselves.  We forget, sometimes, that we are amazing.  When we begin to get stronger, when we move faster and with more assurance, things change.  We become less willing to settle because we know we can achieve great things.  And sometimes that is downright terrifying.  We look around at our lives and realize how much power we have to change things.

Some of us find this to be too much pressure.  We choose to abandon our goals rather than learn to cope with success.  Let’s not go there.

Keep breathing.  Get used to the power before exercising it willy-nilly.  Then enjoy.