Why do you try to do too much and fail, and what can you do about it?
I’m an optimist, always have been. I firmly believe that I can do more in the time I have available than I actually can. I always think it will take less time to get somewhere than it does, that the roads will be traffic-free and a smooth journey awaits. I also believe that I’ll be able to get through the list of ten things that I set myself to do each day, and that I’ll also fit in two exercise sessions around this, and do the housework, and have time to read my favourite book in the evening. But I don’t. And I’m not alone. Many of us will take on too many things at once, try to fit a new course in around a busy work schedule, imagine that we’ll have time to cook all of our meals for the week ahead on Sunday afternoon, or tell the gym instructor when we join the gym that it’ll be no problem to go seven days a week. Stand up if this last one is you. Now sit down again, at least you’ve got a squat in today even if you haven’t quite squeezed in that workout. Now I’m not saying optimism is a bad thing; we need it to motivate ourselves and research has often found that working towards something positive is more effective than working away from something negative, and that people with a strong belief in themselves are often more likely to achieve. But sometimes we go too far and this can be as problematic as being too negative; what we need instead is to strike a nice balance. So let’s look at why it is in our nature as humans to overload ourselves with things to do and then repeatedly come up short? And after that we’ll look at some possibilities to change in future. Optimism feels good It takes us to an imaginary place where everything is how we want it to be and that makes us feel good. Because we feel good we decide that’s where we’d like to be instead and so we rush to get there, attempting to do everything all in one go. This can lead to a mismatch between our dreams and desires and our current situation and abilities. I’m sure you know it, I call it ‘X-Factor Syndrome’. “I want to be the next Mariah Carey.” And ok, that’s cool, what’s sometimes forgotten is how long and hard the journey is to get that far, let’s just settle for singing in tune first and go from there; if we still want it, we keep working at it step-by-step, often for a long time to really master it. Memory is always rose-tinted If you’ve ever done something silly like a marathon, or other suitably big challenge, you’ll know what I’m talking about here. You finish the race and you say it, you always do…’never again’, and you mean it. You feel terrible, exhausted, your whole body hurts and you can’t stomach food or drink. But as the days pass these aches and pains become less and you start to think, ‘maybe it wasn’t that bad?’ Within two weeks you’re trawling websites looking for future marathons because you’re sure you can go faster, and then boom, you’ve entered! The same happens here, we forget that we took on too much and it didn’t work, or we push it to the back of our minds or assign the failure to maintain our change as down to chance or something beyond our control. It may well have been; what we often don’t do though is to look at why it didn’t go as planned. What have I really learned? What needs to be different this time for me to get there? These are deep and painful questions sometimes, and we don’t like to recognise ‘failures’ on our own part, although it is helpful to do so and even to look at them not as failures, simply as learning. We prefer it to feeling ‘negative’ Even if we’ve had a go at something and it hasn’t worked out, it’s better not to be down about it, right? If we start saying things like ‘I can’t do that’ these days, it’s easy to be labelled as a pessimist or just being negative. Society puts a lot of pressure on us to be cheerful and upbeat, when sometimes we don’t want to be, and actually, it’s not always helpful to be. As with most things, it’s about striking the right balance, it’s not about saying ‘that’s impossible’ or “I can never achieve things’, it’s about saying ‘what’s realistic to do right now given what’s going on in life/work/at home.’ In the long run, this can help us more than blind faith and endless positivity. Thinking positively is a start…but it’s doing that actually makes things happen One thing I’ve discovered over the years is that sometimes we just don’t feel very positive. Some days I wake up and think ‘I can’t be arsed to train today’ or ‘that plan I have for the business is useless.’ I’ve worked with many clients too who turn up for sessions feeling down or tired or lacking belief they can achieve their goals. We work on the mantra of ‘let’s just do it anyway.’ So we do some exercise or we eat well even if we’re not feeling it, and lo and behold, our mood improves and we start to feel a bit more positive about things. If you struggle with positivity, taking the ‘just do it anyway’ approach might help. It’s certainly better than thinking positively but not doing something about it, that’s just praying for luck and whilst sometimes it can happen, what you want becomes much more likely with doing. Optimism prevents us from examining potential problems, barriers and drawbacks Being positive and believing things will work out in the end can stop us from examining why we haven’t got there already. A reality check allows us to
Even though I know it’s not good for me, why do I still do it? Exploring the mindset of giving things up
Everyone has been there in some way, shape or form. Some of us really want to give up smoking, but we just can’t seem to resist when colleagues invite us outside for the mid-morning break. For others, we so desperately want to say no to the cake on offer but it’s hard when it appears to be somebody’s birthday, promotion or leaving do nearly every day, and even harder when our folks have bought it especially for our visit…it is our favourite after all. Others of us are determined to stick to a ‘two drinks only’ plan on Friday night, but somehow that turns into seven and we’re not quite surehow. The reality is that change is not black and white. It’s often not as simple as saying “I really want this and therefore I’m going to completely give up that.” We see benefits to making changes but we also see benefits to doing the things we currently do, or we wouldn’t be doing them in the first place. This concept is known as Ambivalence. It is, according to the dictionary, ‘the state of having mixed feelings or contradictory ideas about something.‘ Here are some examples… ‘I want to lose weight’…BUT…’I really like wine as it helps me to unwind after a stressful day.’ ‘I’m determined to give up cigarettes as I know they’re bad for my health’…BUT…’As bad as they are for me, I know they’re the one thing that helps me keep weight off.’ ‘I’m constantly getting ill and I’m sure it’s because I eat too much sugar.’…BUT…’When I get tired in the afternoons I need something to perk me up quickly to make it to the end of the day.’ We could go on with many more examples; my bet is you’re sat there now thinking about your own. And there are a few things we should say about this thought process: 1) IT IS COMPLETELY NORMAL. No matter what the person you follow on Instagram says about #Gainz #AthleteLife #CleanEating #NoExcuses or any other ‘motivational’ saying, they often think about unhealthy things too, find it hard to resist them, often don’t and feel really bad if they do. 2) It is useful. Ambivalence allows you to explore your choices, and make no mistake about it, change is absolutely a choice. You need to decide if there are more pros to changing than there are to staying the same, or if the drawbacks you currently experience are worth making the effort to change, even though you know it might be tough. 3. When you change, it can still be there. In fact, once you’ve decided to give something up, it’s possible that your mindset starts to change to focus on all the things you miss about it. This is the tough time…sticking to what you’ve gone for or going back. If you do go back, you’re not a failure, a loser or a lesser person, you just made a choice that now wasn’t the right time for you to make that change, and that’s ok. So how do you start to work through ambivalence? Try this simple little too. It’s known as a Decisional Balance Sheet. We like the name of course!! 🙂 As with the example above, divide a piece of paper into four even squares and label them something like ‘Good things about changing’, ‘Bad things about changing’, ‘Good things about staying the same’ and ‘Bad things about staying the same.’ Then for the change you’re considering, put all the thoughts you have about it into the box that best corresponds. How do you analyse the results? You can just look at the volume of answers. If there are lots in the benefits of change and drawbacks of staying the same boxes, then you might well want to go for it. Sometimes though, it’s more about quality than quantity, so it’s worth going back through to look at which answers you feel are most important. You can do this by numbering them 1-however many, and it may help you decide what’s right for you right now. Needless to say, it’ll be a balanced decision and right for you. Next time…we’ll look at how you can stick to the changes you decide to make.
