Anyone who has been following me for a while will know that I’m a keen athlete. Obsessed even. I’ve talked endlessly about my desire to jump 5m, to get lean, to lift shit, to win shit and so on…
But the truth is that person seems like a lifetime away. The truth is I have struggled (and continue to struggle) massively this year. An unfortunate set of circumstances that has caused a bit of a shit-storm in my life. And I just can’t seem to get out of it…
[Super short summary of these circumstances:
– a whiplash injury is still causing me problems 4 months later.
– a bizarre admin issue has me with no passport and a costly court case in Malta.
– a loft conversion is now 6 weeks overdue, over-budget and with no end in sight…]
So my stress levels are super high.
I tried battling on for the best part of 2-3 months. But it wasn’t working. And the never-ending cycle of:
… you can do it
… what’s wrong with you, why can’t you do it…
… you are strong and fearless
… you are shit and weak
It has left me exhausted physically and mentally.
Sound familiar?
So I decided to stop. Just stop. I’ve stopped training (mostly). I’ve stopped obsessing about my macros. I’ve stopped beating myself up.
And I’ve stripped my goals down to the bare minimum…
For the first week it was simple: destress. So I played the piano, quite a lot. The goal was: play everyday. And I’m keeping this goal in.
I added a new one last week. Do my physio every day. I’ve not yet nailed this. But I’m nearly there.
So today I’ve added another one: Drink 3 litres of water.
That’s it. I think these will be my goals for the foreseeable.
Which is a far cry from the goals that I would have had a few months ago. But I’m OK with it. I’ve come to realise this is what I need to do to get through this phase. If anything, I kindof wish I’d realised it a few months ago because I would be in a better place now if I’d stopped beating myself up earlier.
But hey ho. Sometimes we just don’t see what’s right in front of us. Do we?
So why am I telling you this? Not for sympathy vote promise!
I’m telling you this because I want you to know, I get it! Sometimes doing the thing we want to do, the thing we know we should do is bloody hard. And sometimes life conspires to get in the way…
And because sometimes it may look like training, eating well and being all “sorted” is easy for me. But it’s not always the case. Sometimes it’s a bloody struggle.
And because I want you to actually see what scaling down means. What making realistic achievable goals looks like. Because I think we all tend to be mighty hard on ourselves and we set ourselves up for failure after failure. I’ve certainly done this for the last several weeks.
But now I’ve just dialled it right down…
You may have heard me say it previously, we should think of our life as consisting of a series of dials…
– Family
– Training
– Work
– Healthy eating
– Well-being
Whatever they might be…
It is impossible to always have all the dials up to the max, all the time. So you should decide what you’re going to dial up and what you’re going to dial down. So that you can avoid feeling overwhelmed, frustrated and a failure…
So that’s me for now… I’ve dialed everything else down. And am focusing on well-being / getting through the chaos, kids and work. And my goals are simple:
- Play piano everyday
- Do my rehab everyday
- Drink 3 litres of water everyday…
I’ll let you know how I’m getting on!
