Turn Your Anger Into Determination and Reach Your Goals

When your faced with an obstacle, will you tuck tail and run, or stand up and kick some butt?

Being fat was no cake walk. Yes, I ate cake every day, but it wasn’t easy to be morbidly obese. Even if I did it to myself. I loved all things food and knew I was killing myself with it.

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At 300 pounds, I didn’t care about much. I was totally depressed, felt defeated and thought about suicide for over half my lifetime.

Then, a work contest came along. I didn’t take it as a sign of hope or permanent weight loss. I wanted to win some moolah, and that is all I cared about.

What was I going to do with the money, you ask? Well, I was going to go to Vegas and eat buffet until I could eat no more. I kid you not, that is exactly what I was going to do with my money.

Almost six months into the weight loss contest, something amazing happened. I started to feel better, I was walking daily and my self esteem was higher than it had been in a long time. Basically, I felt like a bad a$$, and I wanted everyone to know it.

It was December 2009 and I was doing Christmas shopping with a friend. Christmas is so not my favorite holiday, but despite that, I was having a good time.

As we were walking outside of the mall, I tripped on the sidewalk. I fell hard on my knees and was laying on my side. My stunned friend had no idea what to do. As I was laying there, 3 ladies started to come over to me.

I was relieved, embarrassed, and was trying to tell them I was OK. One woman said to the other, “look at that fat b*tch laying on the ground!” All three started to cackle.

I was stunned. I actually had no idea what to do. Like, who does that? These women were well into their 40’s and making fun of someone on the ground. They proceeded to call me “whale” and “cow” and other really horrible things.

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I scrambled up, as I heard my friend defending me to them. I was red-faced with embarrassment, both knees were bleeding and I couldn’t look anywhere but the ground.

My friend got me to the car as fast as possible, all while these women were screaming obscenities at us. I can’t even describe the humiliation I felt that night.

Defeated is an understatement. My friend dropped me off at home, not knowing really what to say. It was definitely an awkward moment.

I mean, what could she say? Sorry some 40 year old women were making fun of your fat a$$?

I got home, sat on my chair with frozen peas on my knees and cried. I hadn’t felt that embarrassed since 6th or 7th grade when I was told by the teacher she heard from the other kids in my class that I stunk and put soap in my locker.

Shame. Horrible shame.

My husband asked what happened, and between my heaving sobs heard the whole twisted story. I told him it was stupid. This whole weight loss thing was dumb.

Who am I kidding? I cant lose this weight. I am going to be fat for the rest of my life.

He quietly said, “So, your gonna just let them win?” I started at him in disbelief. Did he not hear what just happened to me tonight? I wondered if he was missing what I said. “It's obvious I can’t do it!” I yelled.

He said again, “So, they win, then.” It was more of a statement.

He said, “that doesn’t really sound like my wife.” I was floored. It started to sink in.

Yeah! Screw those jerks. Why on earth would their opinion matter to me? I am an adult. I had lost almost 50 pounds by then.

Yes, I was still fat, but why do I care what they said?

A couple days later I was able to evaluate the situation, and you know what? These ladies were my angels. Well, angels with a potty mouth, but angels nonetheless.

You see, when you are faced with an obstacle and want to quit, you have two choices - quit or don’t quit. Plain and simple.

I was a total quitter my whole life. This incident brought me to an all time low that I had never experienced either as an adult or as a child. It was quite pivotal in my life at that time.

I wanted to quit, duh. It's the path of least resistance and I am pretty lazy. But something stopped me. Once I found what it was, I knew I was going to keep going.

It wasn’t magical. It wasn’t some motivational speech my husband gave me, although his words did help, it didn’t make me feel a whole lot better.

You know what it was I found that day? Determination. I never really understood what that word meant until that day.

Yes, I wanted to quit so bad, go back into my comfort zone of eating and feeling more and more like crap, but I knew that those ladies just hit a nerve. I was so determined to hit my goal now, that I didn’t just think I might hit it, I knew I would hit it.

Determination is anger with a goal. It's making a decision to flip those off who don’t think you have it in you to get it done. It's getting up and doing the very thing you may not want to do at that moment, but when you do, you feel better almost immediately.

Getting mad should be part of every process. Sounds stupid? I don’t think so.

I used to think life beat me down and that's just the cards I was dealt in life. I didn’t know I could punch back. It never occurred to me that I should get mad. I let life happen to me, when really, I should have been thinking of ways to change how I react to a situation in order for me to happen to life.

Don’t get me wrong, it's still a process. Over 40 years of being ingrained with this thinking is difficult to change. I still have my “poor me” and “why me?” moments, but they are fewer and farther between now.

What will you do when your own obstacles hinder you from making a decision? Are you gonna get pissed off? Will you tuck tail and run?

I hope you have the pleasure of meeting those three, potty mouth ladies so that you get nice and mad. If you do meet them, punch them in the face for me, will ya?