Good morning, class!
Ahem, sorry. I mean… Good morning everybody who is still reading 2 lines in.
How are we feeling today?
Good?
Bad?
Oddly elated at the prospect of mowing the lawn?
Strangely frustrated that there’s only so many episodes of Octonauts its possible to watch with the kids?
Guilty?
Tense?
Disappointed that you aren’t the Greek god-like physique that is the physical manifestation of the wit and charm that is, deep down, so very obviously who you are, it’s just hidden under layers of Not Who You Want To Look Like™?
Before I continue, I need to qualify this. NO-ONE looks exactly how they want to look like. Not even those people on the “she got 56 boob/nose/arse jobs to look like Barbie” kind of shows. Otherwise they wouldn’t keep getting more. Or those Mr Olympia guys who get on stage and don’t quite make the podium. If they looked how they wanted to look, they’d be in the center of the podium, winning. Then they come back next year to get bigger and cut-er because they aren’t in the shape they need to be in to win.
Which means that they don’t feel how they want to feel about themselves. So, in a nutshell, they attempt to physically change themselves in order to feel how they want to feel.
Now superficially (get it? superficially?... no one likes my bad jokes…) there is nothing wrong with that. Exactly the idea Brianna. If they aren’t hurting anyone, or feel like they’re hurting themselves in the deal, why does it matter at all.
But what if they aren’t getting themselves to where they want to be, regardless of if it’s hurting themselves or not? What if it’s an ideal that is literally beyond ever achieving because it’s an ever-shifting set of goal posts that they wish was objective, but really is subjective perspective? That their “objective” perspective adjusts to seeing themselves, to keep them chasing something because that’s what they are so used to that they do it to feel normal.
Yes, I know, I’m sorry Brianna. That was a bit convoluted, wasn’t it. The shorter version is: if they feel normal having to do things to feel like they’re enough, they will never be enough because their brains will keep adjusting how they see themselves to make CERTAIN they don’t. Pretty rude right.
Now, those are the more extreme examples. There are always other examples in other ways. And even then, not necessarily true of everyone who those stereotypes of people roughly describe. But it’s a few. And everyone, and I mean everyone, has their “I’m not enough” thing.
Anyway, “To the point!” I hear you loudly decry!
Fine. Clearly my extremely well thought out and obviously very amusing metaphors are unappreciated. I definitely won’t be taking that personal. Definitely...
I had a conversation yesterday with a lady who was slim and toned and skinny and all those words that most people think are good ways to describe themselves. She said she wanted to put on muscle to increase her toned-ness (which is a word I made up to shorten her description of what we were talking about), but just couldn’t seem to get anywhere with it.
Tried trainers and diets and counted macros and this and that and all of the above.
And then went through all of the potential reasons why she hadn’t been successful in achieving her goal, as ill-defined as “more toned”. Genetics, hormones, just not built for it, haven’t found the right diet/trainer/program/music playlist (okay, I made that last one up, but you can see where this is going, right?)…
Sounds exhausting, doesn’t it?
That is exactly the point.
If you are constantly chasing something that is supposed to help you feel better about yourself, does it actually work? Does it help to chase things to make you feel better? Or does it stress you out and make you focus on what you don’t have and don’t feel? Which winds up being a big positive feedback loop where all you do is things that you want to change how you feel about you, but just constantly frustrate you until that’s all everything you try ever is and it all becomes too much and you tell your trainer to fuck off because you’re going to get a slice of cheesecake that may turn in to a whole cheesecake, so then what’s the point of even worrying about this stuff if you just some cheesecake addicted vacuum cleaner that cant not eat everything in sight and will die alone being eaten by the 32 cats that live in the same house as you do (because you don’t OWN 32 cats. They own you. AND you’re only allowed to live in their cat village based on a good behaviour/provision of wet food bond being met daily…)
That got a little away from the point, but I think we can see where it can go if we focus so much on doing things so we don’t feel a certain way mistaking it for things that will change how we feel.
The biggest problem with this cycle is… Stress makes your body work less like you want it to. When it’s that constantly loaded up anyway.
This lady I was speaking to, she was so frustrated with training so hard and being so on point with her macros and not getting what she wanted, that she couldn’t see that this was the very thing making sure she couldn’t achieve what she wanted to from her behaviours.
This is kind of why Why matters.
Why was she doing more and more and more? Because she wanted to look a certain way.
Why did she want to look a certain way? To feel better about herself.
Why did she want to feel better about herself? Because she didn’t already feel good about herself.
Why didn’t she already feel good about herself? Well, that’s a conversation I didn’t get to have with her. Yet.
BUT, regardless of that particular why, her behaviours and the Why that drives them make sure that the actions she is doing to change that don’t actually change how she feels, they just let her feel frustrated in a different way about not having what she wants.
Exhausted from doing things that feel like they don’t work AND stressed by things not working triggers all sorts of physiological, neurological and hormonal responses in the body that, frankly, speed you up initially, but really dumb you down quickly after that.
With her example, her body wanted to store energy for the rainy day that her stress kept telling her was coming. If you store it, not much left to grow muscle with. Strength and muscle need rest and recovery to grow with. She wasn’t letting herself do that.
Because she wasn’t doing that, the stress hormone cortisol stayed high. Once you’ve got enough of that flowing through the system, you are literally 30 to 50% dumber. LIT-ER-AL-LY.
Hard to make good choice about what you are doing and why when that’s how the brain isn’t working. Hard to pay attention to how those less good thoughts are really making you feel if all your brain is trying to do is soothe and cover up the sucky feelings about ourselves we don’t like.
The short version… Self-sabotage can get you coming AND going if you aren’t paying enough attention to why you are doing the things you are doing and how much that actually helps you.
Yep, here comes the catch phrase.
What do you want?
Why do you want it?
Are the actions you are doing actually helping this?
Hers wasn’t. I’ve been that person too. We all have when we try to make a change without looking at the real reason for it.
Be kind, be smart, be your best you. No bar fights.
“The reason that I can’t find the enemy is that I have yet to look within myself.” Craig D. Lounsbrough
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