I have always held firmly to the belief that everything in life has a purpose. Challenges as they occur in our lives certainly do not deviate from that truth. In the case of my weight challenges, there has become a parallel to my life’s flow.

I never felt good about myself growing up, and it was not easy getting fit. However, it is so clear to me now that there was a strong purpose in my having learned so much about my body and what has been necessary to become and stay physically fit. There is nothing in the world that can drive a person like purpose. Purpose is a word that has become the driving force of every choice I make, and the reality is that I never could have become this way had it not been for conquering my fitness challenges.

Because of my weight issues, I have learned tremendous amounts of coping which have helped me in all other areas of my life. I learned to accept the reality of not fitting in, realized the pain of it, cited wherein that pain I had control, and learned through persistence how to gain and assert that control over my weight.

Having conquered so much in the events of my weight issues, I was becoming more and more convicted within myself. Pushing out all the drudgery and just powering through these challenges, it was becoming more apparent to me that I was not meant to just understand this new-learned conviction. The point in learning is to share what we learn through our actions and conversations with others. How that was going to take place I did not know, but to me, getting fit was more than just a weight matter. It was about overall health— the mind, body and soul balance. Everything started from recognizing my strengths, as it will begin to form for you as well.

It is never just about getting thin, it’s about gaining control. That comes from acceptance of what hurts, accepting that it hurts badly, and finding where you can control the pain, learning how to control the compulsions, and then asserting that control. Once this process is complete, you will have conviction, and with conviction, there is a sense of purpose for one’s self. Therein, we can own our strengths, and that is where the big picture finally starts to become clear.

In Book 1, I have laid it all out there for you to understand my approach in hopes that I could support you learning your own self-development through fitness. You accepted the pain that fitness was not present in your life, whatever your case was. Upon the completion of the first two steps of the process of weight management (acceptance of what hurts and accepting that it hurts badly), you moved onto step 3, which was learning where you could control the pain, and thus, you looked toward health-filled mind/body/soul books and other forms of learning for help in your quest. Step 4 was your upon finding your sources for learning, you actually gained the knowledge and then you finally, in step 5, asserted that control. We go this process repeatedly with any situation, and I am so both hopeful & thankful to see that you will make/have made it through so many times and now you (will) have gained conviction from it all.

Today, You own Yourself. You own the mistakes, the pains, the learning, the hard work, and best of all, you own the rewards. So what’s next for you? Where will you re-apply some of those steps? Where will you parallel those experiences? Where and through what area of your life can you acknowledge and empower yourself with the lessons and work ethic you learned in getting fit? From where you were to where you are, you have had some basic strengths and talents, and you know you can do well with those somewhere. Once you have become fit, it’s time to make new goals. Keep yourself charged by re-igniting the fire of these processes that helped you succeed in this area of your life. Use those processes and their lessons to keep growing in love and respect for yourself. Empower yourself, and it will help you empower others. Your family will benefit, your work can benefit, and your soul will be the ultimate beneficiary, because you are now living with purpose as your driving force.

Where will you go from here? Have goals that are specific to working up your strengths, and I guarantee that as a result, no matter how happy you think you are, you are going to be happier. Let that happiness invigorate those around you! As misery loves company, your Company Loves Happiness! Happiness is infectious. That’s a great deal to be a part of. It’s ongoingly reciprocal and ever-expanding. Thus is the law of attraction. Put something out and you will find it reciprocated to you from vast and sometimes unpredictable sources, and it will be amplified as the cycle continues. In other words, you get out what you put in, and you will get more and more of it as you continue putting it out there. This law was in effect for me and I didn’t even realize it, but that is why I am writing this book. I learned that the lessons of my path to fitness were attracting more good toward greater goals just because I was working so hard. I knew that stopping just with weight maintenance would be stifling, so my goals, my visualizations of competing in shows remained vivid.

I went on from learning to get fit to hoping to compete at some point, and eventually, that was exactly what I did. With the disciplines that I accumulated in losing weight and balancing my health, there was no reason that I could not get on that stage. I didn’t feel like I would necessarily kill the competition, but I knew that I could do the show. Despite the nerve-wrecking effects of being subjected to the scrutinies of a panel of judges and an audience of hundreds of people, there was a definite reward on the other side of that. There was a goal there though, just like there had once been with my weight, and for me, doing a contest was going to balance the healthy trinity: mind, body, and spirit. Absolutely everything inside me was telling me that my spirit would benefit tremendously if I just got on that stage. Remember when I said in Book 1 of this series, that you have to learn to speak your body’s language? Well, the same goes for your spirit, if you don’t learn to speak with it, how can it communicate to you what will help you flourish? Whatever your beliefs are, if you speak you communicate, when you listen, you learn.

Goal Setting is a spiritual and mental thing. Leading up to the goal is spiritual, and powering through it is both mental and spiritual. The goal of being fit took the spiritual sense to feel the misery of my lack of health, and the expedience required to reach that goal was a combination of holding onto the faith that I could get fit while I mentally acclimated myself with the knowledge and tools of getting fit. I had no interest in going small. If you are going to do something good for yourself, there is no sense in doing it half-assed. I knew that going balls-to-the-wall was going to be the only way to live this out, and so I got fit by learning and applying and maintaining. Once I got on auto-pilot with the weight stuff and I decided to compete, the vigorous attitude has spanned beyond getting fit into the area of my competitive career.

The day I decided to compete in a show, I was completely unfamiliar with the schedule of events in the competitive world of bodybuilding and fitness. Of course, finding a show was the first step. I looked around to find out about what shows were coming up. You can find out about shows in your area by checking the internet, looking for posters at your gym, as well as simply asking people around who you know to be a part of that world. Some of my favorite sites to learn show schedules are npcnewsonline.com and bodybuilding.com.

Once I had decided which sport, for me it was Fitness, I wanted to compete in, and then decided on a show, it was a matter of getting the right team. I was pretty much my team at that point, and I knew that there would be a lot of expense. I sized up the expenses: suits, shoes, grooming, tanning, etc. That being the case, I knew that I would need to work and find a sponsor. How does one find a sponsor?

The best thing you can do is type your expense list up on a spreadsheet, and then you can decide who to go to for sponsorship. You can ask friends who own businesses, which is what I did,or you can go to fresh sponsors. It’s very challenging to find new companies to sponsor your cause, so that’s why it is very important to look polished in your approach. They need to hear and see, if possible, why they should give you money. If you are thinking of looking for sponsorship, get a great package together, and offer them incentives to sponsor you. Can you be a poster child for their products? Can you be a model for them once or twice monthly at some kind of product booth? Is it possible that you have already accumulated some publicity that would show them that you are notable? The point is you want to find every reason for them to work with you and you want to show it, share it, sell it, and let them take advantage of whatever it is that is special about you in order to bring their products some sales. There has to be a trade-off. What I did was get a spreadsheet of my expenses, a letter sharing with them how they could recoup their monies by writing their sponsorship off as an advertising expense, and any newspaper clippings or news appearances I had made were listed for them to see for themselves. Some people said yes, and some said no, but I got through to my first show nonetheless. I had one child at the time, and a husband, but we did not have much money, so I sought out sponsorship dollars. I went to places that had to do with my industry and restaurants that I favored. After telling them what I was doing, I shared my package with them, asking that they cover one or more expenses on the the list, and eventually, I got them all covered. When you want something badly enough and you never give up until you get it, oddly enough, you get it. I was never pushy or psycho, but I was definitely persistent. That was absolutely necessary. Like all things, it never got any easier, but I just got better at it as I went along. There was never a doubt in my mind that I was going to get what I needed to, but there were always obstacles.

I was fortunate that the juice bar at my gym was run by a gentleman that I could approach about sponsorship. The Power Station Juice Bar was run by Tim DuPriest, who was also a photographer. He was starting a photography business, and I was starting my competitive career. I was really happy that he was so helpful, but it never would have come from him without my continued effort. Sometimes, people just see your heart, and even if it’s a crunch for them, they will try to help you because people like supporting each other. Where there is a dream, there must be a person with heart, and the people who have a heart for others will show up to assist, even in the smallest ways. We agreed that I would model for him for free in trade of him being able to write off advertising expenses. There is a lot to be said for intention. Someone once said though, “No one ever built a reputation on what they were going to do.” So, even if I felt like a dork, I just went for it, because, as i said, it doesn’t get any easier, you just get better as you go. My sponsorships were available through the law of attraction, but the law of attraction only works after you have put forth the efforts necessary to communicate your intentions. Looking even deeper into it, there is nothing that can happen if you don’t persist until it manifests. Another one of my favorite phrases: “Everyone gets what they want in this world, when they don’t give up until they get it.” Pretty elementary stuff, but no one seems to realize that this is the stuff I lived by (and obviously still do) when I was seeing a fit woman instead of a fat girl when I looked into the mirror. Remember, acknowledge it hurts, acknowledge the pain, acknowledge you can manage it, figure out how to manage it, and then manage it. I say the same thing a million different ways, but the process remains the same. It will also always remain that YOU ARE WORTH THE WORK!