“Change comes from with-in”

Steps

1. Forget about what everyone else thinks you should do. The biggest obstacle to finding yourself is feeling like you have to mold yourself to other people’s expectations. While you might not want to disappoint the people
close to you, remember that if they really care about you, they’ll want you to be happy–and who finds happiness as a puppet? As long as you continue to exist to fulfill other people’s ideas of who you should be, you’ll never know who you want to be. Remember, “He who trims himself to suit everyone will soon whittle himself away.” - Raymond Hull

2. Find solitude. Get away from the expectations, the conversations, the noise, the media, and the pressure. Take some time each day to go for a long walk and think. Plant yourself on a park bench and look. Take a long, thoughtful road trip. Whatever you do, move away from anything that distracts you from contemplating your life and where you want it to go.

3. Ask yourself every question in the book, questions that are difficult, that dare to look at the big pictures, such as:
o If I had all the resources in the world - if I didn’t need to make money - what would I be doing with my day to day life and why? Perhaps you’d be painting, or writing, or farming, or exploring the Amazon rainforest. Don’t hold back.
o What do I want to look back on my life and say that I never regretted? Would you regret never having travelled abroad? Would you regret never having asked that person out, even if it meant risking rejection? Would you regret not spending enough time with your family when you could? This question can be particularly difficult for some people.
o If you had to choose three words to describe the kind of person you’d love to be, what would those words be? Adventurous? Loving? Open? Honest? Hilarious? Optimistic? Realistic? Motivated? Resilient? Don’t be afraid to pick up a thesaurus.

4. Write down your answers. Beyond your time alone, it’s easy for these thoughts to slip to the back of your mind and be forgotten. If you have them written down, then every time you reflect, you can review your notes and take it a step further, instead of answering the same questions all over again.

5. Act upon your newly discovered knowledge. Do the things that you want to do! Pick up those water-colors. Write a short story. Plan a trip to Fiji. Have dinner with a family member. Start cracking jokes. Open up. Tell the truth. Whatever it is that you’ve decided you want to be or do, start being and doing it now.

6. Be ready for dead ends. Finding yourself is a journey, not a destination. A lot of it is trial and error. That’s the price you pay in return for the satisfaction you receive: More often than not, you hit a bump in the road, and sometimes you fall flat on your face. Be prepared to understand and accept that this is a part of the process, and commit to getting right back up and starting over. It’s not going to be easy - it never has been for anybody - but if you learn to see that as a chance to prove how much you want to find yourself, then you’ll find fulfilment and security in your pursuit. When you are yourself, then everyone will respect you more and treat you kindly.

Tips
• Resist the urge to feel like you’re the only one going through this:
All my life I had been looking for something, and everywhere I turned someone tried to tell me what it was. I accepted their answers too, though they were often in contradiction and even self-contradictory. I was naïve. I was looking for myself and asking everyone except myself questions which I, and only I, could answer. It took me a long time and much painful boomeranging of my expectations to achieve a realization everyone else appears to have been born with: that I am nobody but myself. ~ Ralph Ellison, “Battle Royal”
• Be yourself and make sure no one influences who you are. It will make finding yourself even harder since people are influencing who you think you are.
• Love you for who you are!

(I actually wrote this in response to another blog but thought it would make a good blog on its own. The guy was talking about how the body-builders of today and how they are so different from those of the past; How symmetry and fitness seems to have lost itself)

Here is the link: http://blog.bodybuilding.com/JamerJay/2008/01/16/a-rant-on-bodybuilders-of-today/

Perception > Reality 

I think the issue here is “perception” and how over time the general publics ideas on physical magnificence has become blurred. What you have pointed out is a prime example of how the lines between the quest for physical perfection and the quest to just be to next hugest thing or what I would like to call “over indulgence” in our sport/lifestyle. It not just about the perfect symmetry or even the pursuit of a well rounded fitness structure, but these days it seems to all about being the hugest, freakiest, most muscular man around with no real quest for actually being an all around athlete, other then their quest for the ability to be to grow as much muscle as possible.

The irony here is yesterday a huge muscle head at my gym, (nice guy I talk to from time to time) came up to me and told me I was doing was too much cardio and that I should not run at all if I want to grow muscle to be like the pro’s! I was like thanks for the info man, but in reality I was like dude I want to be fit as well as swole, why in the world would I want to be as big as house and can’t run five feet without breathing heavy?

The trend does not stop at body building, but actually has spread too many areas; I can remember a time when the ideal women was fit and tone and care about her health, but not these days it seems that 99% of the females on the planet (not to mention the guys they are worse) could care less about the health period. I recently went to local bar to catch up with some old friends and (even though don’t drink I had a grand time) although when it came to the women in the bar I was blown away on how many over weight women there were in the bar period, now I know you probably think well the bar is not the best place to use as an example but its everywhere, the mall, my college, hell even walking around my grocery store. The sad part is my old friends (whom have nothing to do with fitness lifestyle) were checking these women out and tell me how hot they are!?!?! Maybe it just me (not to sound in any way conceded) but when I see a women with a muffin gut; one it’s huge turn off and two it tells me she does not share my same passion for fitness, but if this trend continues my female options are defiantly dropping!
I unfortunately don’t have an answer for these trends, but perhaps the more we bring attention to these growing trends maybe we can change things.