Although sometimes they can look remarkably similar from the outside, there is a big difference between giving up and letting go. When we've spent years trying to lose weight, control our eating or change our habits the idea of loosening our grip feels counterintuitive and, quite frankly, a little terrifying. I used to worry that if I stopped pushing myself, monitoring everything and attempting to be so strict, I would somehow lose all motivation and be stuck the same forever. It took me a long time to realise that all that effort, pressure and control was ‘all-or-nothing’ thinking, and it was part of what was keeping me stuck. Not to mention making things so much harder than they needed to be!

Giving up is deciding that something no longer matters to us, whereas letting go is recognising that the way we've been approaching things might not be serving us anymore. We can still want to lose weight, feel healthier, have more energy and feel confident in our bodies without making those desires the centre of our universe to the detriment of everything else. We don’t stop caring about the outcome, but we stop allowing that outcome to dictate how we feel about ourselves and we stop constantly analysing whether we're doing enough. Think of it as releasing the struggle, not the desire.

The trouble with trying to force change is that it creates an enormous amount of internal tension. Every food choice becomes a test of our discipline, every craving becomes something to overcome and every perceived setback becomes evidence that we're not trying hard enough. Ironically that kind of pressure creates the very emotions that drive us towards food for comfort in the first place, as we spend so much mental and emotional energy trying to control ourselves. We become frustrated, exhausted and disappointed with ourselves, then wonder why we keep falling back into the same patterns. It's a cycle that can be incredibly difficult to break when we believe the answer is simply to try harder.

But when we start to let go and release our stronghold, something shifts and we create space in our lives for what comes next. Space to actually listen to ourselves, which invites balance and allows us to approach our goals with more ease and flexibility. There's a sense of calm that comes from no longer being at war with ourselves and from this calm, the choices that once felt like such a battle can begin to feel more natural. We’re not abandoning our goals, we’re simply refusing to make ourselves miserable in the pursuit of them. Instead of seeing a difficult day as evidence of failure, we can recognise it as one small part of a much bigger picture. When we stop treating progress as something that needs to be constantly measured we can then appreciate the quieter changes happening within us, instead of placing so much emphasis on the big external milestones. Maybe we’re thinking about food less, responding to cravings differently or feeling more comfortable in our own skin. These things matter too!

Perhaps the greatest shift is realising that we don't have to hold on so tightly to something in order for it to happen. We can have intentions, take meaningful action and move towards the life we want while still enjoying the life we're living right now. Letting go is not about becoming indifferent to what matters to us but about releasing the fear, urgency and desperation we've attached to it. And sometimes, when we finally stop trying to force everything into place, we discover that moving forward doesn't have to feel like such hard work after all. We can still move forward, just without dragging ourselves through the process. The freedom we've been searching for isn't only waiting at the finish line, it begins to build the moment we loosen our grip.