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sometimes you just seem to hit a point where everything becomes just that little bit harder, and you question everything just that little bit deeper. why am i doing this? what do i want to do with my life? what am i trying to achieve? what am i doing to get there? it's fairly existential stuff and you'd think by my age i'd have figured out most of this stuff. but nope. in fact, i'm more confused than ever. i've always been jealous of people who know where they want to go in life and just get on with the business of achieving it. in school, when my classmates all said they wanted to be doctors or lawyers, police or artists, or even stay at home mums; i was jealous. i didn't have the first clue, it changed on an almost daily basis. i understand now that this had something to do with being a perfectionist (and therefore wanting to be good at everything) as well as chronically low self esteem (believing i was good at nothing). but more than that, deep down inside i'm a searcher. i search for new lessons, new experiences, new knowledge, new horizons. i'm not satisfied with sticking with the same thing. this is what is happening in two major areas of my life right now. my health and my career/study. even though i managed to lose a decent amount of weight all on my own, i knew that i could not stay in that place. i needed new things to challenge me, to change me. i needed a new path, new direction, more lessons and discipline. 12WBT has given me that in spades, and boy am i thriving on it. i'm now embracing workouts daily, trying to beat my achievements and replace old records with new ones. i'm loving trying new things with my food, and having to follow a strict regimen of calories to force me to be accountable. i took new measurements today and although my numbers may not be as impressive as some, they are amazing to me and i am stoked. i have to do a fitness test tomorrow to see how far i've come, and i'm both excited and scared. seeing changes in my appearance (yay for muscles, and yay for a slimmer wasitline) and feeling changes in my strength and cardio fitness is beyond good. i LOVE change. the other aspect of my life where this is noticeable is my career/study, but this is going in the opposite direction. i am so bogged down in the nitty gritty of my studies, that the big picture is almost completely obscured. i'm so sick of plugging away at the same thing day in day out, it's driving me bonkers. it's so messed up, here i am studying in the area that i am most passionate about in the world above all else... and i seriously can't be bothered. i think of what i have to do for my studies each day and feel so flat and dejected, i end up spending half the day procrastinating and ending up further and further behind. i wish i could somehow capture that enthusiasm and satisfaction i am getting from changes to my health and fitness and transfer them to my studies. instead i spend the day dreaming about what else i could be doing, and playing the game of wanting to be doing a million other things - anything but this. what it DOES however force me to do is constantly re-evaluate where i am going with this study, and what i want to do with my life at the end of it. more and more i feel the need to be more than one thing, to do more than one thing, in order to be fulfilled. at the moment my dream is to work in a policy or research role regarding violence against women and equality for 3 days a week, and doing photography 2 days a week. and of course still working out 6 days a week. leaving one day for rest. and cooking. and wine. and friends and family. and the beach. and shopping. and everything else that i love...