Conquering the Fat Kid Within

A personal reflection on the self-defeating mindset and doing battle with the "inner fat kid" who wants to prevent the fulfillment of dreams and goals.

Lots of people spend time establishing their credibility by recounting the things they’ve done well, won, or been better than everyone else they know at doing. While it’s always better, or at least more modest, to have others say these things about you rather than you saying them about yourself, there isn’t anything inherently wrong about playing up your accomplishments if you’re competing for a position or perhaps running for office.

Leaders lead in a variety of ways. I’ve often found that one way to connect with a wider audience is by sharing things that I’ve botched, failed at, or didn’t accomplish. In these pages, I’ve shared failure of a moral naturethat dashed things I believe in and espouse (which I shared for your edification and for a few miserable people I’ve known for 15 years or more who dabble in blackmail), attitude failure, and the straight up not being good enough type of failure. It is that latter point that I’m going to zero in on today.

In my last piece, I wrote about the risks required of you to live what I believe is a full life. A full life is one opposite of what you see people panicking about: one less concerned with retirement accounts and stock markets and more aligned with leaving a legacy and investing in others, challenging yourself, and continuing to sharpen yourself rather than retiring, sitting in a fishing boat, and waiting to drop dead.

To get there, you must learn to fight the fat kid within.

You see, long ago, I was a fat kid. If you were a fat kid, or you have a fat kid, or you’re otherwise sensitive to weight references, this piece may not be for you. I am allowed to discuss it because I have lived it before. There are many reasons that can explain why I was a fat kid, and here are the biggest ones:

· Too many video games

· Not enough physical activity

· Lack of physical and mental toughness

· Poor nutrition habits

The summer between seventh and eighth grades was the worst. I was hovering around 200 pounds, had never lifted weights or exerted myself beyond the minimal fitness standards dished out by a Little League baseball coach, and was in the awkward stage between boyhood and adolescence. Pictures of myself from those days make me cringe as I look at those chipmunk cheeks smashed up against my coke bottle glasses.

Still, the point of this article isn’t about how to stop being unhealthy or the health impacts of being fat and out of shape. The point is, rather, to understand the fat kid within, what the hell his or her problem is, and what your inner fat kid is capable of doing to your life if you don’t assert yourself now and bend him to your will.

Knowing Your Inner Fat Kid

Here is how the inner fat kid thinks:

· “I can’t.”

· “The others are bigger/stronger/faster/handsomer/prettier/smarter/more capable, and I can do nothing about it.”

· “I won’t be able to do better than what I have right now.”

· “I deserve to be walked on, picked on, and the butt of all jokes.”

I suppose if a young person has psychological troubles, he can qualify as an honorary fat kid even if he is skinny, because many of the impacts of low self-esteem are the same. The fat kid can’t because he thinks he can’t, and he doesn’t try because he’s afraid trying and failing will get him more abuse. Once these beliefs about self sink in, the rest of the damage manifests on its own:

· You develop a people-pleasing mindset because you will do just about anything to get people to stop making fun of you and accept you.

· You don’t get the girl, and eventually you stop trying.

· You wind up with people in your life who use you, consume all you have to offer, gaslight you into believing you’re wrong about everything you believe, and eventually leave you in the ditch. Many people wind up marrying these sorts of sociopaths because they think they won’t find anything better.

If a fat kid pulls out of a terminal tailspin, it is usually because he’s finally had enough of the taunting and rejection (think Ralphie finally opposing the bully in A Christmas Story); unfortunately, this is rare. In my case, my father made fun of how I looked with my shirt off one evening on the patio and humiliated me so badly I began to deprive myself of treats and ride our one piece of cardio equipment until Dad begged me to stop. That verbal jab wasn’t one of my Dad’s finer moments, but he made up for it when I was in eighth grade.

A kid in my gym class knew I was a gentle giant and suffered from fat kid issues. He had been shining a laser pointer in my eyes repeatedly until they hurt and would repeat this behavior for days on end. Unfortunately for him, I was growing, exercising, starting to lose a little bit of the chub, and feeling more confident. I brought this problem up to my Dad, and he told me the next time it happened, to teach him a lesson he would never forget. He finished his comments by telling me he would have my back if I faced school discipline.

The next day, that green laser entered my eyeballs, courtesy of the same kid hiding behind the sofa in the entry to the gym. Without missing a beat, I jumped up, hurdled over the sofa, and threw him on his head and was coming down for more before everyone pulled me away. I never had another laser beam shined in my eyes.