I admit that I’ve been struggling, lately. I haven’t gotten serious enough about losing the weight I’ve allowed to creep back on during the summer months, and if my head isn’t in the right place, I tend to let that really get to me.

I still struggle with believing the worst instead of the best, too. While no one would accuse me of being a Pollyanna, I do try to look at the bright side of things and spend more time there than the opposite. I know, if I let myself dwell on bad things, that they consume me. And those bad things tend to creep into everything, regardless of how hard I try to corral them into one corner.

It’s like peeing in a pool. If you think just that one area is all that’s polluted, you better think, again!

In my case, I’ve allowed self-doubt to grab hold. While I know most of you come here to read about weight loss, I also know that there’s no hard line between how well I do in weight loss efforts and how well I perform in other aspects of my life. When I start to fail in one area, it creeps into everything. So, here on the first day of my Birthday Month, I’m looking at ways to filter out the bad stuff so the whole isn’t contaminated.

Lately, I’ve let the small things get to me, letting them grow and fester. When those things start undermining my days, it’s because I let them go and grow into something less manageable.

A small example: last week’s orchestra rehearsal wasn’t ideal. Just like personal practices, full rehearsals can go well, or, like last week, just not entirely well at all. I felt like I hadn’t done my best, and I also felt like I hadn’t done a good job of assessing what needs to change. Instead of simply letting it sit and then looking at it differently, I’ve let it bother me. I’ve allowed it to keep me from practicing as I should, and practice is the only way I’ll improve. Instead of solving the issue, I’m making it worse by not paying it proper attention. And like anything else in life, it doesn’t get better by beating myself up over it.

I have a hard time separating out weight loss success from everything else, and if I’m not doing well in my efforts, I tend to believe on some level that I should be punished for it. That gaining a few pounds makes me a bad person, and that surely the world is whispering about my pants fitting tighter than they should and just you watch, she’s gonna fail. The one who turned that around for me this week was my doctor; I was in for an annual physical, feeling bad because I know my weight is up where I don’t want it, and his response on seeing all my numbers, even my weight, was telling me that I’m “disgustingly healthy”.

It is the larger picture that matters. Tripping on the small things doesn’t mean there isn’t progress. I know I can steer my health as well as I can choose to sit down with my horn and practice more intently for the outcome I want. I can’t help it if someone else pees in the pool, but I can certainly do what’s necessary to filter out and clean the pool when that happens, instead of letting the whole pool go to pot. For this month, I’ll focus on what I can do to change myself no matter what else steps in my way.