It Starts with a Commitment

When my husband and I started getting serious about considering when/if we were going to have kids, I started looking at what was holding me back. I got straight with myself: I wanted to have kids and I was terrified of being pregnant.

I didn’t think that I’d be good at being pregnant. I like to be in control of things, I didn’t want to gain weight and have my shape change. I didn’t want hormones making me feel crazy. I didn’t want to be viewed as a crazy person. I didn’t want to be responsible for another person being inside me. What I wanted was to be able to drink alcohol and pig out on a dessert without worrying about if anyone else was suffering from the affects.

Pregnancy felt like it would be a lot of pressure. And I thought I had a lot of hard evidence about why pregnancy was a bad idea. Just look around…pregnant women are getting big, their ankles are swelling, there are special diseases you can get when you’re pregnant. I had what I thought were compelling hard facts. Pregnancy is not a good idea!

Ah, okay, I was being truthful with myself. Well, great. Now what do I do with this? I want 2 kids and I don’t want to be pregnant. This is a dilemma. Lovely.

Well, there I was a coach who specialized in working with entrepreneurs. I was constantly telling my clients that they could create anything they wanted for their business, for their lives in general. I’d seen people completely transform an area of their life. I’d transformed areas of my life. Something that had been locked into looking one way now looks differently. I knew it was possible to shift something on its ear. And, I had no view of how this could be possible in pregnancy. I was looking at how I could “get through” the experience with minimal disruption and angst. How could I time the pregnancy so that I wasn’t pregnant during any significant events and especially not on any vacations? I didn’t want to be fat and sober for those! How was I going to work my life around my pregnancies? What strategies could I use to tolerate this inconvenience?

That was where my head was at. Inspiring, huh? Well in looking at this, I got clear that I didn’t just want to “get through” a couple years of my life. I wanted to find a way to continue to enjoy my life, and – it seemed like such a pipe dream at the time – maybe even a way to enjoy life more as a pregnant person.

I had no idea how I could get there…really very little idea. And I was committed to enjoying the experience of being pregnant.

I went from being hugely cynical about pregnancy to being someone others referred to as a “poster child for pregnancy.” I did a number of things and shifted a number of mindsets to get from there to here. I can’t even tell you all the things I did to create the shift. What I can most clearly say now is that it all started with a clear, inspired commitment. From that commitment, I could now have the filter to see what did and did not align with my commitment.

Please join the conversation: What are you currently committed to? What have you been able to shift due to a clear commitment on your part?