She knows what she needs to do to lose weight. What is holding her back?
What if it's not a lack of willpower, but something deeper?
I met Elena in February this year at a UN conference. After a workshop, we started talking, and she told me, "I should book a session with you next month; I need to lose weight."
At the time, I was still working 80% of my office job, and we agreed to speak again. But nothing happened. In July, I decided to leave my job and work full-time as a health coach, so it made sense to reach out to her again and ask if she wanted to work with me now. She told me she was going on holiday and suggested we talk again at the end of the summer.
The months passed. It was now October, and I still hadn’t heard back. So I reached out again. I wanted to ask her:
"Are you ready to choose yourself now?"
What if what you gain is worth more than what you lose?
Changing your health isn’t just about knowing what to eat or which exercises to do. It’s also about being willing to try things you’ve never tried before.
You might have to change the way you eat. You might have to find a form of exercise you enjoy, even if you’ve always thought of yourself as someone who hates sport. You might have to learn to rest without feeling guilty, or stop treating your body as something that needs fixing before you can feel good about yourself.
You might also have to let go of habits that feel comfortable, even when they aren’t helping you (bye-bye daily glass of wine).
That can be frightening. The familiar version of yourself, even if you’re unhappy with it, is still the version you know. Trying something new means accepting that you might feel awkward, might not get it right immediately, and will have to be patient with yourself.
But what if what you gain is worth more than what you lose?
What if you could feel stronger, have more energy, move with greater confidence and feel more at home in your body? What if you could stop spending so much time thinking about losing weight and start building a life in which looking after yourself becomes part of your routine?
You don’t have to become a completely different person overnight. But you do have to be willing to try something different.
And you don’t have to figure everything out on your own.
So, what’s holding you back?
Maybe you don’t need a coach. Maybe you already know what you need to do, and you can figure it out on your own.
But if something is holding you back, if you know you want to change but can’t quite bring yourself to take that first step, let’s talk.
Book a free 30-minute health coaching consultation with me. We don’t need to talk about buying a programme. Let’s talk about you, what’s holding you back, and what you need to move forward.
I’m here if you need me.
Elena seems genuinely interested in making a change. On other occasions when we’ve met throughout the year, she’s come back to the same thing: “We really need to talk. I really need to do something about my weight.”
And yet, nine months after our first conversation, she still hasn’t started.
It made me think about how often we do this in our own lives. We want something to change, we know it matters to us, and yet we keep finding reasons to wait.
But what are we really waiting for? And what is actually stopping us from choosing ourselves more often?
Are my excuses valid?
We all have our reasons for waiting. I have heard everything from “I don’t have time”, “I’m too tired” and “work is crazy” to “my kids are too demanding”, “I can’t afford it”, “I’m too old for this”, “I’d look stupid”, and “my mother is sick, and I have to take care of her”.
Some of these reasons are perfectly legitimate. Life can genuinely be difficult. If you’re grieving someone you love, or struggling psychologically, it may not be the right moment to take on a major lifestyle change. Sometimes, what you need is support to get through the period you’re in and maintain the habits that help you feel better and stay connected with yourself. I’m not suggesting we should ignore our circumstances or pretend that everyone has the same opportunities.
Still, I sometimes catch myself wondering if I’m using my situation as a shield; have you ever felt that way? It’s worth asking ourselves whether our circumstances are the real reason we’re waiting, or whether we’ve become very good at finding reasons not to start.
I’m not saying every obstacle is an excuse, or that we can overcome everything simply by trying harder. But sometimes, the reasons we give ourselves deserve a closer look. Because beneath “I’m too old to try something new” or “I don’t have time”, something else may be going on.
That's where things get interesting.
Mirror, mirror on the wall, what’s the biggest excuse of them all?
I can talk about excuses, but I also have to look at my own. What reasons do I give myself for not doing the things I know would be good for me? And what is really going on underneath?
Excuse number one: I need to work harder. I chose this business, and I need to make it work.
Ever since I became self-employed, I have worried about whether I can make my business flourish. I gave myself this incredible opportunity to do something new, something I believe I am meant to do, something I hope will positively impact people’s lives.
So I tell myself maybe one more LinkedIn post will bring me a new client. Maybe one more video will help someone. I keep coming up with reasons to do just a little more, to work just a little longer. After all, I chose this path, and I need to make it work.
But if I look underneath all these reasons, I know what is really driving me: the fear of poverty.
I know this because I’ve spent years working on myself and understanding my own patterns. I can now recognise when I’m using work to avoid facing that fear. And sometimes, I can stop myself and say: “No, Michelle. You know better than this. You need to stop working. Rest is important for you, too.”
I don’t always get it right, but at least I can recognise what’s happening. The fear is still there, and it is real (things were pretty tight when I was a kid); but I don’t have to let it make every decision for me.
Excuse number two: What if this doesn’t even work? Why waste my money?
About five months ago, I had an appointment with a psychologist who specialises in relationships. She seemed like the perfect person to help me understand my relationship with love.
I know the relationship with my father shaped my belief that love has to be earned, not something I deserve simply because I exist. I can see how that belief influences the partners I choose, and I want to understand it better so I can make different decisions.
And yet, I hesitate.
I can tell myself that she won’t understand because my situation is too specific. Or that her group programmes aren’t right for me because I don’t want to work in a group. I tell myself that I need individual attention, that my situation is different, that perhaps this isn’t the right psychologist for me.
These may sound like reasonable concerns. But when I look deeper, I suspect something else is going on. I’m afraid that opening that door will mean opening a whole can of worms. Once you see something, you cannot unsee it. And I know looking at some of these things will hurt.
Sometimes, it feels easier to live with a familiar discomfort than to face the discomfort of changing it. Even if a pattern isn’t good for us, at least we know it. We know how it works, what to expect, and we may even feel we have some control over it.
What scares me isn't only what I might discover, but also having someone else see me as I am, without hiding the parts of myself I’d rather not show. And perhaps even more frighteningly, having to look at those parts myself.
I think this is where excuses become interesting. Sometimes, what holds us back isn’t a lack of time or money. It’s fear. Fear of what might happen if we change, what we might have to confront, what we might have to let go of, or what we might have to admit to ourselves.
And sometimes, the biggest obstacle isn’t taking the first step. It’s being willing to face what that step might reveal.
As I think back to Elena, there’s something I haven’t mentioned, but I suspect it’s at the heart of why she keeps putting her own wishes on hold. I think, deep down, she feels that to be valued, she has to be great at her job; that her worth depends on how successful she is, how much money she brings home, and how much she does for others. Somewhere along the way, she stopped prioritising herself. Maybe that’s her real challenge: not just fear of change, but the belief that her own needs should always come second.
What's holding you back?
You know you want to make a change, but something keeps getting in the way. Let's talk about what's holding you back and what you need to take that first step.
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Email: michelle@michellecartin.com