Motivation From Within

Overweight, having anxious panic attacks and realising her self-confidence had hit an all-time low, Rebecca Beavon pressed the ‘Submit’ button and has never looked back.

Ildiko Browning

For as long as I can remember, I’ve always been a ‘little bit’ overweight. I’ve always been a member of a gym and went semi-regularly but I didn’t know what I was doing and there was no structure to my training; the same went for my diet. It wasn’t until a few years ago that I realised I had become a bit more than a “little bit” overweight. I had moved away from my home city and fallen out of the routine I had formed and slowly but surely, the weight piled on. As a result, I lost all of my self-confidence; not just in the way that I looked but in all areas of my life.

There was a lengthy period when just going to the local shops would send me into an anxious panic out of fear of people looking at me, and in fact, I didn’t want to go out anywhere. It's safe to say I was miserable. My (now) husband has always been into the gym and he would often try and help me but even the slightest mention of gymor my diet would set me off; I just didn’t want to face what had become my reality out of embarrassment, shame and fear. 

I work in Human Resources and I remember one day at work taking an online personality assessment we were considering using as a recruitment tool, and on the self-confidence dimension of the assessment I got 2 out of 10. It brought me to tears, and it was then I knew I had to do something to change the way my life was heading. I knew my lack of self-confidence was causing so many problems in my life and I didn’t accept that this was how things had to be for me; I wanted more and I wanted better! I finally acknowledged that the only person who could fix things was me.