My BodyBlog

What do you call it when I have feelings of unhappiness about a big part of my life?  When I can look back and see that some of the decisions I made that brought me to where I am today were wrong?  Is it a mid-life crisis when I feel I need to make a radical change in my life if I want to be truly happy?

I have thought a lot about why I feel this way.  So, for anyone who cares to read, and for my own self-analysis, here are some ‘DEEP THOUGHTS’……

How did I get to where I am today, at the age of 43? I’m a professional in the financial services industry, I am self-employed and I make a decent living. But I have absolutely no passion for what I do! I went down the road to be certified in my profession because it seemed like the right thing to do at the time and I was more than capable at doing the work.  More than that, it was the easiest and most stress-free thing for me to do at the time.  Many of my decisions have been based on a stress-minimizing strategy, caused by the hard times I went through as a teen.  It jaded most of the decisions I made as a young adult.  Now, after working in this field for almost twenty years I feel trapped.  I won’t complain about the money, even though I could make a lot more money if I were more ambitious or went to work for someone else in a larger community.  I’ve read that people who love what they do for a living look forward to getting up in the morning for work and they enjoy what they do everyday….that’s certainly not me.  What a shame for me to go through life feeling like this…but what do I do?

What are my strengths and passions in life?  I’ll describe them (in no particular order).

• I love to serve customers in a retail environment.  I’ve been exposed to it helping my wife sell at craft fairs and flea markets, and helping at local charity sales.
• I love to teach people one on one, and have had some experience with it over the years (tutoring, giving workshops to small group, software training to small business owners).
• I like to do the accounting and financial management of my own small business.  I am very organized and I know I would be a good financial manager for any small business.
• I am a great listener.  I have always had people tell me their troubles, even people I don’t know very well!
• I am practical.  I try to be straight forward and tell people how I see things in clear language.
• I am open-minded.  I try not to rush to judgement, but instead judge other people more by their actions and less by what they say or what other people say about them.
• I don’t give opinions on subjects based on emotions- I like to know all the facts.  If I don’t think I have enough facts or knowledge about a subject to give an informed opinion, I’ll say so.
• I don’t mind admitting when I’m wrong or when I’ve made a mistake.  I’d rather learn from a mistake than pretend it didn’t happen.
• I have very good written communication skills and pretty good verbal ones.

Now, my passion: I love everything about leading a healthy lifestyle.  The weight lifting, the cardio, the eating for muscle gain and fat loss…doing one motivates me to do the others since they go together to produce fanstastic changes in my body.  It is like a snowball effect - the more I do, the more I want to do.  The more I learn about my body the better diet and exercise decisions I make, the better results I get, the more I want to do, etc; etc;  I have never felt this way about any other thing I have done in my life.

The changes in my body are very rewarding, and I do have more goals I am working towards, but it’s not meeting goals that is the most satisfying part of it for me.  I just love to be at the gym!  I love the atmosphere there, I love to be around other people who are working out, and enjoy the comraderie I have developed with some of the other regulars.  I love lifting weights - that feeling of fatigue and strain when you are nearing failure but you know you can do just one more if you bear down and give it everything you’ve got - then the exhileration after you do it!  Accomplishing things with my body that I never thought possible is the best feeling I’ve ever had.

Reflecting on my strengths, skills and the new lifestyle that I am passionate about, I believe that I would find all of the personal fulfillment I am looking for by being a personal trainer and owner/manager of a fitness centre.

But how do I get from where I am now to there?  I have no formal training or experience in the industry.  I live in a suburban area with a gym that meets the needs - another one wouldn’t work, there just aren’t enough people to support two gyms.  Is this just a pipe dream?  Should I just focus on what I now do for a living and be grateful I have the resources and time to support my new lifestyle?

At every point in my life, good things have happened to me when I was just at a low point and about to give up hope - finding my wife, becoming self-employed, getting my business to the point where I could make a decent living, starting to improve my health by working out at a time when my attitude was starting to be one of acceptance of my body as it was and that I didn’t have it in me to change.  Did I make these positive things in my life happen, or was I lucky that they just happened to me?  I have to take some of the credit for being patient and recognizing what I needed to do to start improving whatever aspect of my life I was unhappy about - even if meant taking a risk of failing - a big deal to someone who is conservative and risk-averse by nature like me.

Maybe that time has come again.  I recognize what it is about my life that I am passionate about and gives me true fulfillment - maybe its time to take another risk and make something happen.  My instincts tell me this is the right direction to go in.  I just don’t know how to do it yet in a way that wouldn’t cause too much disruption to my wife from a financial and lifestyle point of view.  We’ve worked hard to get where we are today, I can’t expect her to sacrafice any of that security in the hope that I might succeed at a career change.  So what do I do?  My answer right now is to keep learning, keep improving myself and keep my eyes open for opportunities to become more involved in the fitness world.  It’s taken me 43 years to figure out what I want in life.  Rarely do people get what they want overnight.  It takes hard work and commitment.  I’ll just have to keep following this lifestyle and have faith that all will work out for me in the long run……advice anyone?