Sometimes you hear exactly what you need to hear exactly when you need to hear it. Sometimes, even when you don’t know you need to hear it.

Today, I was sitting at my desk at work – you know, working, as you do – when my co-worker sent me a link to an article. We typically send each other things back and forth during the day. In the interest of being completely transparent with you, it’s usually Buzzfeed articles or celeb gossip.

But today, it was an article called “Creating a New Mission Statement”. Not our typical fare, to say the least. But I opened it and started to read it, and as I read it, I thought, “huh. This is exactly what I needed to read today.”

And not just today, but lately. For the last year or so. I’ve been pretty open about struggling with my body image on this blog. About how, after I stopped nursing Bug, I quickly gained the ten pounds that basically refuse to evacuate my body no matter what I do to it.

And, you know, continuing in the vein of being transparent, I haven’t been that nice to it. I’ve derided it. I’ve called it names. I’ve scoffed at its reflection in the mirror and called myself fat and stared at myself in windows as I walk down the street, thinking “you have really let yourself go, man.”

This is something I think about all the time.

Anyway, this article. This article is about the power of creating a personal mission statement. The article states that “in creating a mission statement, coaches say it is important to identify the underlying values that may motivate change rather than focusing on a single behavior.” When you tap into these values – the why and the what of your goal – you begin to understand intrinsically why it’s so important to you. “I want to be skinny again” isn’t digging deep, and that’s what I’ve been telling myself. That’s it. “I want to be skinny again.”

Well, that’s great. But why? Why am I so desperate to get back to this girl?

Ironically enough, this was the day I found out I was pregnant!

I don’t know. She is essentially the same girl I am now, except maybe a little happier.

So, I’ve decided to work on my mission statement. To dig deep and try to understand why I want to get “skinny” again. And maybe once I uncover all of it (which, to be honest, probably has to do with my looks tying in with self worth and people telling me I was beautiful when I was young and abunch of other self-esteem things that are way too crazy to get into here), it won’t even have anything to do with getting skinny again. Maybe it’ll have more to do with eating food that makes my body feel good. Or getting back into yoga because it calms my mind. Or doing bar method, because while I am in perma-FML mode while I’m doing it, I love it as soon as it’s over.

Maybe because it’s over.

Anyway.

As if that weren’t enough, the universe nudged me again today. I went on Tumblr earlier (kind of addicted, not even sorry) and was hit in the face with this:

Working on it. We’ll see what happens. Hopefully I’ll be bringing my mission statement to you next post.

In the meantime, tell me what your mission statement is, or would be, or let’s just sing Bootylicious by Destiny’s Child.