Extremes Are Easy
Extremes are easy. Black and white is easy. Binary good/bad or on/off thinking is easy because it's essentially thoughtless. You know exactly what constitutes being "on" and anything less is unacceptable. You are simply on point or you're not. It's easy.
But here's the thing: the spectrum always exists. There is magnitude in how far we veer off course, and that magnitude matters. Cutting a workout halfway through is different than skipping a workout all together, and skipping one workout is different than skipping five. Being 100 calories over your target is different than being 1,000 calories over your target, and treating yourself to an indulgent meal once a week is different than an indulgent meal every single day of the week, and still vastly different from having indulgent meals for every single meal, every single day of the week. See my point? They're not the same, but when we mentally lump everything that falls short of perfection into one giant category of "off plan", we're doing ourselves a disservice.
Letting ourselves experience this spectrum is difficult because it requires thinking. It requires discipline to not throw our hands up and say, "Well, I already missed one workout -- I might as well take the rest of the week off and start again on Monday," or, "I already ate one cookie -- I might as well eat the entire box and start again tomorrow." It requires us to be honest with ourselves and to evaluate the degree of our "mishaps". It requires some arbitrary gray area where we actually have to think. We have to allow and accept, even embrace, some level below perfection if we want long term success.
But that can be confusing. How do we decide what's good, good enough, acceptable, and unacceptable? There lies a question I ask often: how do we let good enough actually be good enough??
It's difficult to have a goal, to have an idea of what it takes to reach it, and then to accept anything less than 100% of what we believe we're capable of. For many people, the idea of being gentle with ourselves and embracing some imperfect adherence some amount of the time seems like taking the easy way out. (We're not working hard enough! We must not want it badly enough!) And while I'll be the first to admit that there is a time and a place for extremes (such as contest prep), I really don't think it serves us in our everyday life -- it sets us up for failure because it's unrealistic to expect 100% perfection 100% of the time in the long term. In reality, I'd argue that committing only to extremes is taking the easy way out. You can't fall back on the binary good/bad scale of success. You must reflect on the magnitude of your divergence. You must be honest with yourself in your evaluations of your thoughts and behaviors, ask the deeper questions of "why", and find some way of reconciling the "on" and the "off" into a lifestyle of "good enough".
We become good at what we practice. After spending the majority of the last year in the extremes of contest prep, I'm having a good struggle living with some balance. I'm out of practice, but I'm improving. Extremes are easy, but I'm committed to the challenge of stepping out of my perfectionist mindset and living in the "good enough".
But here's the thing: the spectrum always exists. There is magnitude in how far we veer off course, and that magnitude matters. Cutting a workout halfway through is different than skipping a workout all together, and skipping one workout is different than skipping five. Being 100 calories over your target is different than being 1,000 calories over your target, and treating yourself to an indulgent meal once a week is different than an indulgent meal every single day of the week, and still vastly different from having indulgent meals for every single meal, every single day of the week. See my point? They're not the same, but when we mentally lump everything that falls short of perfection into one giant category of "off plan", we're doing ourselves a disservice.
Letting ourselves experience this spectrum is difficult because it requires thinking. It requires discipline to not throw our hands up and say, "Well, I already missed one workout -- I might as well take the rest of the week off and start again on Monday," or, "I already ate one cookie -- I might as well eat the entire box and start again tomorrow." It requires us to be honest with ourselves and to evaluate the degree of our "mishaps". It requires some arbitrary gray area where we actually have to think. We have to allow and accept, even embrace, some level below perfection if we want long term success.
But that can be confusing. How do we decide what's good, good enough, acceptable, and unacceptable? There lies a question I ask often: how do we let good enough actually be good enough??
It's difficult to have a goal, to have an idea of what it takes to reach it, and then to accept anything less than 100% of what we believe we're capable of. For many people, the idea of being gentle with ourselves and embracing some imperfect adherence some amount of the time seems like taking the easy way out. (We're not working hard enough! We must not want it badly enough!) And while I'll be the first to admit that there is a time and a place for extremes (such as contest prep), I really don't think it serves us in our everyday life -- it sets us up for failure because it's unrealistic to expect 100% perfection 100% of the time in the long term. In reality, I'd argue that committing only to extremes is taking the easy way out. You can't fall back on the binary good/bad scale of success. You must reflect on the magnitude of your divergence. You must be honest with yourself in your evaluations of your thoughts and behaviors, ask the deeper questions of "why", and find some way of reconciling the "on" and the "off" into a lifestyle of "good enough".
We become good at what we practice. After spending the majority of the last year in the extremes of contest prep, I'm having a good struggle living with some balance. I'm out of practice, but I'm improving. Extremes are easy, but I'm committed to the challenge of stepping out of my perfectionist mindset and living in the "good enough".
.JPG)
Comments
Post a Comment