Wes Watson
I stumbled upon a new podcast last night from Flex Lewis called, “Straight Outta The Lair.” I could barely understand a thing he was saying because of his strong accent but I’m intrigued to know more about his podcast and who he interviews based on this interview with Wes Watson.
Within the first minute I paused the video and took out my pen and paper to take notes because he had me mesmerized and motivated to learn more. I actually stopped and rewinded this interview multiple times because the things I was hearing was new and inspiring when thinking about physical and mental health.
“Who” not “How.” That was the first thing I wrote. I’m always asking “how” am I going to lose weight this time? I keep trying to frame it as, “How am I going to get healthy?” but what I really want to know is “How am I going to lose weight?” Wes Watson thinks it should be who because we need to take responsibility for our actions.
I know how to lose weight but will I do it? I can learn some techniques and strategies from experts but it’s up to me to put it into practice. It keeps coming back to self love and Wes mentioned this multiple times during the interview.
I also have a quote from Kamal Ravikant on my homepage which directly states that self love comes from doing the hard things in order to become our best self and when we’re at our best we love ourselves the most.
Not smoking, drinking, eating crap and exercising are all very hard things for me to consistently do, but, according to Wes, you’re never going to be truly happy unless you can push yourself and accomplish your goals on a daily basis.
That also reminds me of Arthur Brooks saying that happiness comes from progression and unhappiness comes from regression. I think thats my favorite quote lately because I’m realizing how true it is.
I’m literally a happier person today than I was 2 days ago because I’m keeping the promises I made to myself and I’ve done it for 2 days in a row. There’s no better feeling than waking up knowing I did good the day before.
I hope I can stay on the right path today because we all know its an hour by hour battle to make the right choices.
No one really loves exercising and eating perfectly but the ones who do it feel the best about themselves. Doing nothing and eating chips really only feels good while you’re doing it, which isn’t a long time it is?
Healthy choices don’t feel good as they’re happening and the dread is real before hand but the long term benefits are worth it while the long term “benefits” of making bad choices are extremely detrimental to our health.
Wes also recommended to be angrier at ourselves to produce better results.
I think this is an interesting concept that may hold some truth to it but I’m not quite sure how to channel it to make it work for me. I think it’s because I’m thinking that I have to be mean and angry toward my inadequacies all the time which doesn’t make sense when you’re working on self love.
I think he means, or my take away from this mindset, is that we need to be more self aware of our inadequacies and we need to make sure we’re pointing the finger in the right direction.
“Who” is responsible for this overweight body? “Who” is going to do the work to make it right?
“Self mastery depends on self honesty.”
- Wes Watson.
According to Wes, the question we need to ask is, “Who do I have to become to pull this off?”
This connects to what I’ve learned from Joe Dispenza on identity change.
Right now, and for most of my life, my identity has been tied to a fat, insecure little girl who isn’t good enough and will never be good enough.
Ouch, I’ve never written those words before and it hurts my heart a little for that girl.
What I realized last night, or was reminded of, is that I need to do the mental work to identify with the woman I want to become.
I played around with this on the weekend. I love driving around and listening to music and while I was doing this I was imagining that I was the cool chick standing on stage looking amazing and performing to an audience who saw me in the same way.
In this perfect image, I’m wearing all black with giant curly hair, big hoops and hot pink lipstick. Thats basically me every day but the thing that is different from that “girl on the stage” is that I’m fat and insecure and I do everything I can to take attention away from myself because I don’t want people looking at me.
I’m afraid of sitting down because my rolls make me uncomfortable and every morning I dread finding something to wear because my goal is finding clothes that can help me hide my flaws.
Now I feel angry because that hot girl on stage is me, I’m so close, if only I could get my physical fitness under control. If I put in the work and the self discipline to eat right and exercise then I could be that girl in 6 months. I know its six months because thats the longest I’ve ever been able to stay on track with diet and exercise and each time I hit the six month mark I felt and looked great.
After six months; because I felt invincible in my self confidence, I went back to old habits thinking that it wasn’t going to affect me or that I had my eating under control.
This time, my goal is to keep going after six months and keep working hard. I’m not going to lie, there is a part of me that wants to give up. I’ve lived in this identity for so long I feel like its impossible for me to change. I want to start visualizing myself as that girl on the stage more. I want to be more of a bad ass. I am a badass.
“Exercise strength though restraint.”
-Wes Watson
Yep, you nailed it again Wes. The power of saying “no” is undeniable. We’re faced with choices in each moment of the day. Do I to eat those sour keys or do I walk away? Walking away is so much harder but I know if I choose to walk away, its one more step to being the girl on the stage.
“Instant gratification is not living.”
-Wes Watson
When we work hard for the things we get, we appreciate and value them more. We live in a world of instant gratification right now and its creating very lazy people, myself included.
I’d like to give myself permission to be patient and know that if I make the right choices consistently, I’ll see a significant changes in my body and I’ll feel so much better about myself. Only then can I truly help others achieve to become their best selves.
I want to be a success story with my body. I already feel like a success with my education, my job, and my personal relationships but I can’t be lazy with those either. I want to keep learning and improving, I want to get better at my job and my relationships with my family, friends and husband. I’m so proud of myself for those things but I’m not proud of my body and I want to be. I will be.
“No one can give me better validation than I can give myself.”
-Wes Watson
I’ve spent my whole life looking for validation from my parents, my friends, my partner, and my colleagues but I never feel like I get enough and I secretly resent the people who don’t give it to me.
I’ve actually had conversations with my partner about giving me more compliments to help me feel better about myself because I’ve struggled with low self esteem for so long that it’s hard for me to feel good about myself without the help of others.
A girl from work told me yesterday about a compliment someone got about the good work she was doing and for a second I was so jealous because I want the same compliment from the same person.
“Don’t they see the good things I’m doing and how hard I’m working as well?”
Watson’s quote above has changed a lot for me because I’ve never thought of myself being as being the only person responsible for making me feel good about myself. I know what I’m doing all the time so I should be encouraging and congratulating myself more. I can’t wait until I can get to this place with all areas of my life. It’s a concept I really want to take with me.
I have so much more to say about this interview but I’m running out of time before work even though I woke up at 4:30 to ensure I had the time.
Wes wakes up at 2:45 to start seizing the day. It sounds insane but I get it because when I’m on this track of learning and improving myself I become addicted to it.
I love seizing the day early in the morning, I love that time of reflection. I don’t exercise during this time but I might start. I’m going to focus on mindset and food first.
I think Wes would tell yell at me to get a workout in as well but I’m not there yet and I don’t want to put that pressure on myself yet.
I feel ashamed saying that because it’s so counterintuitive to everything I wrote today but I know myself and I want to take it slow until I’m ready to go all in with diet and exercise.
-Dawn Rochelle ♡
