What one thing?
What one thing?
There is a world of things I need to do, want to do. The list of goals is overwhelming me; I feel smothered by it. I realized this past weekend that I am teetering on the edge of depression over it. Eating poorly, getting too little sleep and too little exercise, caffeinating myself with Co-Cola (as we call it here in the South) to keep going, feeling weighty and heavy and full of pasta and unfocused.
It’s easy in those moments to give in to the vicious cycle, to see no way out, to just keep repeating the pattern. Something in that pattern must be sustaining us, even if unhealthily. I knew I had to change something, even if only to feel in control about that one thing. And I needed to make it just one change, not more. It’s too easy for me to fall into all-or-nothing thinking, but honestly, that’s what has gotten me into this space.
This happened a few years ago, and the only thing I could come up with to change was to start drinking my coffee black. I was a sugar-and-cream drinker at the time. The only simplification I could think of that I could be successful at was to ditch the dessert factor in my coffee and go simple with my java. Sounds silly now, but it made sense to me at the time.
When I travel, I’ve often said, “oh, yes, I’m going to work out for an hour every day while on the road.” And I don’t. It’s madness, given my schedule, to think that I would. And yet I keep setting the same goal, and because I can’t possibly reach it, I decide I might as well eat chocolate lava cake.
In response to that ongoing pattern, a fantastic personal trainer and wellness coach named Michael Scholtz asked me to consider lowering my bar in order to be successful. WHAT A CONCEPT! In a world intent on over-achieving, lowering my bar was an idea I had never considered. What if I said I would walk for 10 minutes a day while traveling? I could actually succeed at that. Recently I had a lot of fitness goals for a week and when I reached none of them, I explained to Michael that I had been in bed with the flu. “Rather than mark 0% for these goals,” he said, “why didn’t you just change your goals to ‘drink hot tea, stay hydrated, and get more sleep?'” I stood, mouth open, realizing it would never have occurred to me to give myself that kind of grace and opportunity for success. Why is that?
Why not offer myself some grace? Why not create some space for myself to succeed? Why was I constantly creating goals at which I would fail? Why not create a goal I could achieve? Is that so wrong, to move forward incrementally? To acknowledge that life happens in ways we don’t plan, and that stubbornly beating our goals into a changed landscape only makes us fail?
Back to this week–what one thing could I do right now–and not wait until the book is done or the laundry is finished–to unburden myself, become lighter and more focused? One thing seems manageable, even in the busiest of times. And so I lowered my bar–I am not going to reorganize my whole house, catch up on all my backlogged correspondence, learn to sew, and lose 50 pounds while I finish my book–I’m simply going to cut down on caffeine and see if the fog lifts without so much Co-Cola flinging its way through my veins. And so that’s what I’ve done this week. Five days into it, and I feel amazing. Clear-headed, eating better, getting more sleep. Just one change.
What ONE small thing can you do to improve your experience of life–not after your deadline is met, but right now. One small step forward that will be a start for you, that will enable you to feel successful, that will add up over time. I’d love to hear your thoughts on that. Please leave a comment about the one thing that might make all the difference for you this week–I’m sure we can all learn from each other. How can we give ourselves some grace?
Love,
