If you’re like most people, at some point you’ve probably been in an uncomfortable situation where you needed some help.
You might have spent hours going over the particulars of what you were going through, desperately trying to determine how you would resolve the event.
If only you’d had enough money to get through until payday, had someone to babysit for you, or been able to borrow someone’s vehicle, the issue could have been all worked out. Your situation would most likely have been easily and quickly resolved had you reached out for assistance.
You may even have had someone in mind whom you could have asked. But you just couldn’t bring yourself to request help. What stopped you? Why didn’t you ask for help?
Maybe it was your pride. Maybe you were ashamed or embarrassed about what you were experiencing. Perhaps you convinced yourself no one else in the world has ever been in the fix you were in.
But even if this may seem contrary to what you were taught as a kid, it’s okay and even smart to ask for assistance when you need help.
Why you should ask for a little help from your friends
1. All of us are entitled to ask for help. Sometimes, each of us needs a bit of assistance to solve a challenge we’re dealing with. When you ask for help, you acknowledge your humanity. You show you belong to the worldwide community.
2. Asking is an effective method of problem-solving. Sometimes, issue resolution and relief is just a phone call or conversation away.
3. Give others a chance. You’ll provide a friend or family member with an opportunity to help you through a difficult time. After all, if one of your friends or a family member needed assistance and all it would take was a quick call to you to solve the issue, wouldn’t you want to get that call? Your friends and loved ones are most likely glad to help you.
4. Set the example. When you ask for help, you show friends that they could ask you for assistance someday if they’re in a bind. Frankly, asking for help is what friendship is all about. Friends are usually pleased to reciprocate some favor you’ve done for them in the past.
* Your relationships are also enriched when you ask for and accept help from others. You’ll feel closer to the person who helped you and they’ll feel emotionally closer to you.
5. Connect with others. The person who helps you will gain a better understanding of you and your current situation. Knowing that someone you care about truly understands you can feel incredibly reassuring.
6. Show your character. By asking for help, you’re provided with an opportunity to show your true character. If you borrow money, for example, you’ll be able to show that you repay your debts by promptly paying back the person that helped you. And that’s a good thing.
Re-frame the way you view asking for help. Asking for help demonstrates your humanness, is an effective way to solve challenges, and provides your loved ones with the chance to reach out to you.
Asking for assistance also lets friends know they can ask you for help later on and enriches your relationships. Go ahead and reach out the next time you need help!
Angela Atkinson is a certified trauma counselor and the author of more than 20 books on narcissism, narcissistic abuse recovery, and related topics. A recognized expert on narcissism and narcissistic personality disorder who has studied and written extensively on narcissistic personality disorder and narcissistic abuse in toxic relationships since 2006, she has a popular narcissistic abuse recovery YouTube channel. Atkinson was inspired to begin her work as a result of having survived toxic relationships of her own.
Atkinson offers trauma-informed narcissistic abuse recovery coaching and has certifications in trauma counseling, life coaching, level 2 therapeutic model, CBT coaching, integrative wellness coaching, and NLP. She is a certified trauma support coach and certified family trauma professional. She also has a professional PTSD counseling certification. Her mission is to help those who have experienced the emotional and mental devastation that comes with narcissistic abuse in these incredibly toxic relationships to (re)discover their true selves, stop the gaslighting and manipulation, and move forward into their genuine desires – into a life that is exactly what they choose for themselves.
Along with her solution-focused life coaching experience, Atkinson’s previous career in journalism and research helps her to offer both accurate and understandable information for survivors of abuse in a simple-to-understand way that helps to increase awareness in the narcissistic abuse recovery community. Atkinson founded QueenBeeing.com Narcissistic Abuse Recovery Support, the SPANily Narcissistic Abuse Recovery Support Groups and the Life Makeover Academy.
“If you can dream it, then you can achieve it. You will get all you want in life if you help enough other people get what they want.” ~Zig Ziglar
Good news, people. You can be anything you want to be–and as Mr. Ziglar said, if you can dream it you can achieve it!
Take a moment for yourself. Sit back, relax and allow yourself to dream for a bit about whom you’d like to be and what you’d really like to do with your life.
If you could simply paint an image of who you want to be, what would that look like? Free-association like this can be incredibly helpful in realizing your goals.
Spend some highly productive time meditating on your dreams with these strategies:
1. Find a quiet time and place. This will be somewhere where you can reflect without interruption. You might take a walk in the park or a bike ride for an hour. Maybe you’ll choose to lay out on a blanket under that big shade tree in your back yard.
2. Focus on what makes you happy. Think positive thoughts. Think about what you wanted to be when you were 10, 15, and 20. Was it the same occupation or way of life at each stage of your development? Or were you always coming up with something new you wanted to do?
3. Think about your deepest desires. What do you really want? Do you want to have a lot of money and travel the world? Or just settle down and have a family? Maybe you picture yourself surrounded by many close friends with whom you spend a lot of your spare time. Maybe your preferred way to live is an independent, quiet lifestyle alone with your books, paints, and hobbies. Whatever–just “do you.”
4. Visualize your living space.Focus on what you’ve got in your living space that is GOOD. Where you live largely determines the kind of life you have. Living in a warm southern climate means you can be more physically active in warm weather year round. If you live in an apartment in the middle of the big city, you might live a life filled with wall to wall people, ethnic foods, and cultural experiences of all kinds. There’s rarely any quiet and you’re incredibly active, partaking of all that city life has to offer. A rural setting, on the other hand, provides its own sense of stability. You enjoy nature frequently. The sights, sounds, and smells of plants, animals, and the four seasons surround you as you walk or work outdoors. Stress levels are lower.
5. Make a wish, take a chance and break away (from your old, negative thoughts). You might think that making a wish is just for kids. But for the sake of this exercise, if you could have just one wish for your life, what would it be? To be a husband someday? To be a mother? To travel to a few exotic countries you’ve wanted to see? To be an accountant or small business owner? Your wish will reveal a lot about you and what you desire.
6. Dream about your ideal career–or, if you’re already there, dream about taking it to the next level. Continuing to paint the picture of who you would choose to be, where would you be working? What kind of job credentials would you hold? What would you be like in that situation? Because work is almost one-third of your life, consider your career choice as profoundly integral to your happiness.
7. Get your planning on–let’s go! Now that you’ve reflected on your life and who you’d like to be, how close is your actual life to your desires? What can you do to help yourself become who and what you want to be?
You deserve to live the life you choose. Reflect on who and what you want to be. Let your mind go for a bit. Then, ask yourself what you want for yourself. Think about where you’d prefer to live. Think about the career you’d have if you could do it all over again.
Finally, ask yourself what you will need to do to get to the place of your dreams, physically, emotionally, and career-wise. You can be anything you want to be. Make some effort now to find out who that really is.
What do you think? Share your thoughts and experiences in the comments section, below.
Angela Atkinson is a certified trauma counselor and the author of more than 20 books on narcissism, narcissistic abuse recovery, and related topics. A recognized expert on narcissism and narcissistic personality disorder who has studied and written extensively on narcissistic personality disorder and narcissistic abuse in toxic relationships since 2006, she has a popular narcissistic abuse recovery YouTube channel. Atkinson was inspired to begin her work as a result of having survived toxic relationships of her own.
Atkinson offers trauma-informed narcissistic abuse recovery coaching and has certifications in trauma counseling, life coaching, level 2 therapeutic model, CBT coaching, integrative wellness coaching, and NLP. She is a certified trauma support coach and certified family trauma professional. She also has a professional PTSD counseling certification. Her mission is to help those who have experienced the emotional and mental devastation that comes with narcissistic abuse in these incredibly toxic relationships to (re)discover their true selves, stop the gaslighting and manipulation, and move forward into their genuine desires – into a life that is exactly what they choose for themselves.
Along with her solution-focused life coaching experience, Atkinson’s previous career in journalism and research helps her to offer both accurate and understandable information for survivors of abuse in a simple-to-understand way that helps to increase awareness in the narcissistic abuse recovery community. Atkinson founded QueenBeeing.com Narcissistic Abuse Recovery Support, the SPANily Narcissistic Abuse Recovery Support Groups and the Life Makeover Academy.
When you’ve got a lot of weight to lose like I did, staying “on-plan” consistently can seem daunting.
I spent a lot of years trying to figure out how to stay motivated, and eventually, I got it. I lost 100 pounds (and counting–I’ve lost about 110 now and have a few more to go!).
But here’s the good news. While my journey thus far has taken more than two years, I haven’t spent a lot of that time feeling deprived, left out or unhappy.
I’ve changed the way I perceive myself and the world around me, and as a result, I’ve been able to take my time and learn to listen to my body.
Yet, even today, from time to time, I get on the scale regularly to make sure I’m moving in the right direction, as slow as the going is.
If I notice that the number goes up more than a pound or so (three during PMS week), I take notice and take action.
Over time, I’ve come up with a few weight loss motivation tips that really do work.
I stay motivated to continue my healthier lifestyle choices every day, one day at a time, thanks to my fail-safe plan that sort of developed naturally as I made the changes to both my lifestyle and my perception.
Angie’s Fail-Safe, Stay-on-Plan Weight Loss Motivation Tips
Forgive Yourself First
If you fall off-plan and find yourself backsliding into old, unhealthy habits, your first instinct might be to belittle yourself, beat yourself up, even to punish yourself.
One woman I know will literally starve herself for 24 hours for each “slip-up” she has on her plan to exercise and lose weight.
For example, at a birthday party, she indulged in a tiny piece of cake.
The next day, she worked out for 3 hours and refused to eat a thing.
The problem with this kind of behavior is twofold–besides being completely unhealthy and slowing down your metabolism, it’s not a lifestyle that can be continued forever without serious consequences.
Rather than beat yourself up, just forgive yourself, love yourself that much more, and move forward on your plan.
My husband and I are working together on this healthy lifestyle! So far, so good!
Remind Yourself Why
You started this journey for a reason. Whether you wanted to live longer, be hotter, get healthier, play with your kids, have better sex, wear better clothes–or all of the above and more, make a list of reasons you’re trying to get in shape.
Review the list anytime you feel yourself falling back into your old, unhealthy habits and really dig into the WHY of it all. Doing so can really renew your motivation in a big way.
Go Back to Basics
When I started this journey, I started small. I love me some baby steps! I made one change per week–first, I started tracking my food (not necessarily restricting, just becoming aware of what’s really going into my mouth).
Once I got comfortable with that, a week or two later, I started keeping track of my water consumption and making sure I was getting in at least my eight glasses per day.
I kept making one small change at a time, and before I knew it, I’d lost 100 pounds!
So, if you find yourself slipping up, go back and remind yourself how you got started and get back to basics. For me, that’s tracking my food again and drinking my water.
Look Back (at How Far You’ve Come Already)
One excellent way to remind yourself why you need to stay on track is to remind yourself how far you’ve already come, or of where you want to go.
You can do this with your own side-by-side before/during/after photos, or just look at old photos of your “old self.”
It doesn’t matter if your old self is sitting there reading this post and trying to find motivation, or if you’ve already lost a bunch of weight and are just trying to stay on track.
Anytime I see my own before/during photos, I am quickly reminded of why I need to continue on my path.
What a difference a few months can make! This is/was me!
And before I had my own before and during photos, I used older pics of myself and photos of women I call “body idols”–otherwise known as women who were at my ideal weight and who also had a similar body structure and height.
MyBodyGallery.com is a great place to find your own body idols, if you haven’t already. (It’s where I found some of mine!) Visual motivation can really open your eyes (pun intended) and keep you moving in the right direction.
Try Something New
I find that using body wraps and sometimes supplements can really help me stay motivated. The body wraps help because they tighten and tone my skin, which helps me look and feel slimmer–this helps me stay motivated in a big way!
I also like to get my greens (AKA superfoods) in because they make me feel better overall and definitely reduce any bloating or swelling that might be happening. But since I don’t love all kinds of greens and since my rule is to only eat things I love–I had a conundrum, until, that is, I found The Greens.
The Greens is a powder that you can add to any liquid (I just use water, myself) and it contains more superfoods and veggie-type nutrients than I could even take in a single day–and it makes me feel fabulous–clears up my skin, keeps me regular, helps me look slimmer by reducing bloat and gives me tons of calm, productive, non-jittery energy, just to name a few benefits. Even better, it tastes mildly like an orange drink, but it’s not too sweet or sour. Just mild and relatively pleasing–and totally worth it! (Get yours here, if you want.)
So, how about you? What are your best tips to stay on track when you’re trying to lose weight and get healthy? Share your thoughts, tips and experiences in the comments section, below!
Angela Atkinson is a certified trauma counselor and the author of more than 20 books on narcissism, narcissistic abuse recovery, and related topics. A recognized expert on narcissism and narcissistic personality disorder who has studied and written extensively on narcissistic personality disorder and narcissistic abuse in toxic relationships since 2006, she has a popular narcissistic abuse recovery YouTube channel. Atkinson was inspired to begin her work as a result of having survived toxic relationships of her own.
Atkinson offers trauma-informed narcissistic abuse recovery coaching and has certifications in trauma counseling, life coaching, level 2 therapeutic model, CBT coaching, integrative wellness coaching, and NLP. She is a certified trauma support coach and certified family trauma professional. She also has a professional PTSD counseling certification. Her mission is to help those who have experienced the emotional and mental devastation that comes with narcissistic abuse in these incredibly toxic relationships to (re)discover their true selves, stop the gaslighting and manipulation, and move forward into their genuine desires – into a life that is exactly what they choose for themselves.
Along with her solution-focused life coaching experience, Atkinson’s previous career in journalism and research helps her to offer both accurate and understandable information for survivors of abuse in a simple-to-understand way that helps to increase awareness in the narcissistic abuse recovery community. Atkinson founded QueenBeeing.com Narcissistic Abuse Recovery Support, the SPANily Narcissistic Abuse Recovery Support Groups and the Life Makeover Academy.
If you’re like most people, at some point you’ve probably been in an uncomfortable situation where you needed some help.
“If you can dream it, then you can achieve it. You will get all you want in life if you help enough other people get what they want.” ~Zig Ziglar
If you fall off-plan and find yourself backsliding into old, unhealthy habits, your first instinct might be to belittle yourself, beat yourself up, even to punish yourself.
