Not on my watch.

Not on my watch.

It occurred to me today that there are quite a few things I could use as my personal and PROGRAM mission statement. There are too many to choose just one however, so I decided to consider it more of an idea than a statement.

It all started today when during a conversation with a client, she confided in me that she had
not gone to several social functions recently because she was so unhappy with the way she looked. I knew exactly what she was talking about. I'm sure you've experienced this at some point or another as well.

Many clients have told me about times when they were all ready to go out for the evening but after trying on six or seven outfits they just said f*ck it and stayed home because they were so discouraged with how they looked. That sucks. That really sucks.

Sometimes it’s either that or you decide to go out anyway but you will spend the
entire night in oversize clothing trying to hide your appearance and being totally preoccupied with how you look. Sound familiar? It does to me. This is where I realized one of my "mission statement” ideas.

I can summarize it with the expression "Not on my watch". What I mean by that is, the following are things that I want to change and things that I don't want to see happen on my watch.

I never want to see someone missing out on social events because of how they feel about their appearance. As I have spoken with many of you about, this is not about having a perfect bikini body or becoming a bodybuilder. For some, that may be the case but for most of us, it’s not about that.

Success, in my opinion, is not looking like you are 25 (unless of course, you are 25 lol), but it's about looking good and feeling confident at any age and in any situation.

Success for me would be a world where not one person stays home from a social event because they are self-conscious about their physical appearance.

It would be a world where at any age, we can do whatever it is we like to do and not be
limited by our physical performance or the way that we look.

So along those lines, success for me would also be a world where no one sits out on an activity that they would like to do because of their physical condition. For example, how many times have you heard a mother, father or grandparent tell a young child that they were too tired to
play or to weak to pick them up or carry them? I find this incredibly heartbreaking for both the adult and child. In my perfect world, I'd never see that happen.

We can all cite countless examples of people, maybe our friends, maybe ourselves or maybe our parents, who have not been able to continue with a certain sport or activity that they love because of their physical condition. How sad is that? Often times as we approach our later years of life, we have more free time to do what we want to do but we have lost the physical ability to do any of it.
The result of the loss of strength and physical capacity as we get older is the older adult who can't do anything physical that he enjoys anymore, whether it be skiing, playing basketball or playing with his grandchildren; and he ends up sitting on the couch watching TV all day. There is nothing that is more sad to me than that.

To sum it up, my goal in life and for all of you is a life in which you don't sit anything out.

You don't stay home social functions because you don’t look good in your dress.

You don't sit out the impromptu football game with your kids because your back hurts.

You don't neglect intimate times with your spouse because you are uncomfortable with your clothes off.

Not on my watch.