So, you messed up. Now what do you do?

We’ve all been there. We make a bad choice, or a series of bad choices, and now we just feel bad about where it got us, or who got hurt in the process. How do you take that negative and make it okay?

First, own it. Don’t try to put it on someone else. Even if someone else was involved, take ownership of your own actions.

Second, if you hurt someone, make amends. Tell them that you messed up, and you’re sorry. Don’t make any excuses for yourself, just own it and apologize.

Third, give yourself permission to feel bad about it. Sure, every cloud may have a silver lining, but when you’re in the middle of the storm, you can’t see that silver lining, and that’s okay. You can take time to work through it.

Last, move forward and learn. What did you learn about yourself, or about someone else? How can you avoid making that same mistake again? How can this experience make you more understanding of other people when they make mistakes? How can this make you a better person?

Don’t treat yourself like you’re supposed to be perfect. You are a flawed human who is going to keep messing things up. If you keep messing up the same thing, then it might be time for some outside help. But for the normal mistakes you make in life, give yourself permission to be human, and try to learn as much as you can from every experience.

A lot of people think they want to be rich and famous.  If you think you want to be rich and famous, do you really know why?  Like, deep down inside of you why?

Is that a goal for yourself, or is that a goal about how other people perceive you?  Most of us, deep down, don’t really love ourselves.  We see our own weaknesses, not our own strengths.  We see our own shortcomings, and our blind to our own successes.  We want other people to approve of us to try to compensate for our own lack of self-approval.

The problem is, if you don’t like yourself, you won’t be able to truly accept the approval from other people, because you won’t believe that you deserve it.

So, before you try to get rich or famous, make sure that you already approve of yourself, and that you know why that is your goal.  If you think that having people be jealous of the big house, or the fancy car, or the name recognition, will make you like yourself, you’ll be sadly disappointed.

Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson said something along the lines of this: When you come home from work, you don’t skip working out because you’re tired, you skip working out because you don’t have the right motivation.

So the question is, for any goal that you have, why is that your goal?  What is it that you really want?  It’s fine to say you want to lose weight, or want to get in shape, or whatever your goal might be, but really ask yourself why that is your goal.  What is it that you really want?

If you don’t know your reason, chances are you will not meet your goal, because if you don’t have a reason for the goal, then how will you stay motivated when things get hard?  If you really know your motivation, then that will give you the power to get through when things get rough.

When you were little, whenever I took you grocery shopping with me, I would show you the magazines on display, and I would say “Look at the pictures of these women.  These are all fake.”  I started telling you this when you were far too young to have any idea what I was talking about, but it still seemed important enough to me to start telling you as soon as I could.

Women are taught to hate their bodies.  Too fat, too pale, hair too straight, hair too curly.  Why are all the women on the magazine covers airbrushed?  It doesn’t matter what her body really looks like, they won’t show it to us in its real form.

What message is this sending?  That no woman’s body is good enough.  That even the supermodels have flaws that should be changed; that should be hidden from us.  So if the supermodel isn’t good enough, how are you supposed to feel good about your own body?  How are you supposed to look in the mirror, and see your flaws, and still know that you look good?

The next time you’re at school, or in any other public place, look around at the girls there.  Really look at what they look like.  Notice their flaws, but also what looks good about them.  This is what real people look like.  Real people don’t look like the people on tv, and they certainly don’t look like the people on the magazine covers.  They don’t look like the Hollywood actresses with their eating disorders.  They look like the people you see every day.

Can you see how we’re being manipulated?  Can you see how they get us to buy what they’re selling?  As long as we feel bad about ourselves, we will buy whatever they’re trying to sell us, whether it’s beauty products or TV shows.  We’ll spend our money to try to look like the people they show us, and we’ll never accomplish that, because what they’re showing us is fake.

I know it’s hard when we’re constantly bombarded by these fake images.  And it makes it even harder that most of the people around us have all been duped by them.  Just try to take a step back from what you’re being told and what you’re being shown, and really look at yourself.  You don’t look perfect.  No one does.  But that doesn’t mean you aren’t beautiful in your own, flawed, imperfect, real way.  Learn to see your beauty, even with your flaws.

All of us want things from our lives, but not all of us are willing to work for it.  The good things in life require effort.  If you’re only willing to make the minimum effort, guess what you’re going to get for it?

We admire people with great bodies.  We admire great athletes.  We admire professionals who are at the top of their field.  However, we often discount the successes that these people have had.  “She is just naturally skinny.”  “He has great genes.”  “He got into his dad’s business.”

While some people may have an advantage here and there, generally speaking people do not get to be the best, or look the best, without a lot of effort.  The reason that we admire 6-pack abs is because it takes so much work to build up your abdominal muscles, and lose your abdominal fat, that the vast majority of people will never do it.  Certainly, many athletes are born with a body that is suited to what they do.  But the elite athletes also work diligently to stay in shape, and improve their skills.  The ones who don’t make that effort don’t stay in the game.

The bottom line is, you have to work for the good things in life.  If you want a great body, you need to be eat right, and exercise every day.