In fact, I turned 40 years old almost a month ago.

What does it feel like to be 40 YEARS OLD?!?! Honestly, I feel no different than I did when I was 18 years old. The only thing different now is that I am much wiser than my 18-year-old self. I have made my share of mistakes. Some of them I had to make two or three times. Others I’m still making. Mistakes are lessons we are supposed to learn from.

Since my birthday, all I’ve been doing is thinking about where I am in my life and where I want to be. I guess this is common when one hits what could be considered “mid-life”. To be honest, I should have been making this assessment on a weekly to monthly basis. I’m way overdue for some soul-searching. At least I’m doing it now.

As the saying goes, better late than never.

At the age of 17, I had made up my mind that I was going to join the US Army and study Information Technology for my military occupational specialty (MOS for short). Those are two goals I can proudly check off of my list. After serving my time on my initial contract I didn’t reenlist and once my contract was up, I got out of the military and went back home. Ever since then, I’ve been winging it for the most part.

I can tell you for certain that winging it when it comes to your life is not the way to go. It may work for some people but for the vast majority of others, it leaves us unsatisfied, financially broke, and wishing we could have done things differently when we get old. Winging it when you have kids can make the situation a lot harder for you and your kids in the long run.

 

Winging it when you have kids can make the situation a lot harder for you and your kids in the long run.

Life is very much like a business whether you like it or not. It takes a plan, discipline, and work ethic to survive and thrive. I’ve been learning this lesson the hard way.

Here are a couple of examples of how I was winging it:

1.  I’m 60lbs overweight. It’s completely my fault. I’ve been making terrible food choices, not exercising, and drinking minimal amounts of water. It’s not that I can’t lose the weight, I know I can. I’ve allowed external influences to affect me negatively and it’s had a huge impact on me.
2.  At 18, I thought I would be making at least a 6 figure income by now. I’m not. Up until a few months ago, I’ve been doing the bare minimum to scrape by financially. It’s been completely by choice. It’s not that I didn’t want to, I was putting my hopes on my financial situation improving on someone else.
3. I’ve been allowing the actions of others influence my decision making and it hasn’t been beneficial.

I’m 40 Years Old Now, it’s time to stop making excuses.

I’ve been battling my weight for over a decade now. Do you know how much it sucks to be overweight? I’ve been hiding behind a 10-year-old profile photo on all my social media accounts. I refuse to upload new photos of myself because of how ashamed I am of how I look. It is extremely painful to add the photo above. That whole feeling like a failure is a hard pill to swallow.

I’m just not one of those people who are into the “fat acceptance” movement that has swept the nation. I’m also not one of those people who want to give those who are thin or extremely fit a hard time simply because I’ve been lacking the discipline that the extremely fit clearly have.

Yeah, I know we are going to die eventually. We just don’t need to take the express train to get there. There is so much left in life to do.

On my About Me page, I wrote that I wanted to help people, that my goal was to inspire people to make better choices. All of it is still true. I want to do all of these things and more but the simple truth is no one is going to take my advice if I can’t my own.

So what am I going to do? My options are either keep doing what I’m doing and remain miserable or I cut the bullshit and make the hard choices to make the changes that I so desperately need to make happen.

I Have To Do Better

I guess I’m going to cut the bullshit and make the hard choices. I should be more like Ernestine Shepherd.

As far as my financial situation goes, it’s nobody’s fault but mine. It’s not the government’s fault, it’s not the rich man’s fault, nor is it societies fault. It’s mine. I own it. There are 1000 millionaires minted every day in the US. The resources are available for ANYONE to get ahead, quite a bit of them practically free and at the touch of your fingertips. There is no reason I should be scraping by. I have to rely on myself because that’s the only person I can count on.

I want to have nice things. My daughter wants to take classes not offered by public school. I want her to be able to take these classes. I want to travel the world and take my daughter to see how beautiful the world is in person.

Whether we like it or not life isn’t fair, nothing in life is free, and the reality is we can only count on ourselves to get what we want out of life. It’s not anyone else’s responsibility to pay our bills, make us happy, or to stay healthy but ours.

Now the question is, what do I do next. Here are a few small changes:

For weight loss:

1.) Drink more water. I vow to drink a gallon of water a day.
2.) Move more. Regimented exercise routines bore the shit out of me so I think I’ll put on the right music and dance, at least to start out with. Youtube has tons of dance mixes for workout music.
3.) Eat more veggies. I don’t eat junk food so that isn’t an issue.
4.) Post my progress.

Money:

I don’t want to work for someone else. Having to rely on someone else and their ability to make good business decisions so I can make an hourly pittance isn’t appealing anymore. Here is what I’ve come up with.

1.) Work on my blogs more. I have two of them. This one and another one dedicated to beauty products, etc.
2.) Learn all I can about sales and marketing to expand on what I already know and actually apply them.
3.) Create a product of my own and sell it.

If I can solve a problem and bring value to the marketplace I should be able to do very well in the market as long as I keep pushing. At least that’s what successful business people keep saying. 🙂

So here is what’s next.

I will post weekly updates on my progress for getting healthy. It’s the only way I can stay accountable.

I will focus on building my business. Some aspects of building my business are talking to people about it. It’s excruciating. AHHH!!! The fear of rejection is strong, but talking to people is necessary. Luckily there are massive amounts of training for that. The only hard part is the execution.

Now that I’ve bared some aspects of my soul, I want to hear from you.

If you are 40 and over, did you do some soul searching when you had your 40th birthday?

Has your life not turned out how you expected? If so did you make changes?

Is losing weight an issue?

How hard is it for you to stick with eating healthy?

Do you have a hard time staying away from sweets and junk food?

What do you do to make sure you drink enough water during the day?

Are you frustrated with how things are going in your life?

Inquiring minds want to know!

Comment below.

 

P.S. My comments regarding weight loss are strictly my opinion of my current situation. Everyone’s situation is different. There are people who have legitimate medical conditions that make weight loss extremely difficult to achieve.