One of the things I hear most often from listeners & clients is something along the lines of “What is wrong with me? Why do I keep doing this to myself??”
It’s inevitable. You want to change. You commit to change. You psych yourself up. You’re doing it.
Until you don’t.
You want to eat well, but you don’t.
You want to workout more, but you don’t.
You’re frustrated and wondering what is wrong with you.
I’ve got a few thoughts on that, but first, you’ll have to indulge a simple story.
The other day, my sister Debi came by to record a podcast with me. If you haven’t listened to the episode, you’ll definitely want to. We laugh, we cry and we talk a lot about having a messed up relationship with food.
Anyways, after the episode we decided to go play tennis.
We don’t play tennis.
I haven’t played in 20+ years. She hasn’t played much more recently than I have.
I borrowed some rackets, bought some balls & off we went.
We missed more shots than we returned. At times, each of us looked like we had two left feet and you might have wondered if our eyes were even open (they were!)
We weren’t good.
As we played, I thought about how playing tennis for the first time in many years is SO MUCH like trying to lose weight or get fit.
As we played, I was tempted to apologize for every return I missed, every ball I shanked, every time I didn’t hustle fast enough.
I caught myself comparing myself to my sister. Was she faster? Was she returning more shots than I was? Was she annoyed that I wasn’t good? Was she thinking about how much I sucked?
It would have been easy to get frustrated. It would have been easy to give up and shout, “I suck! I’m awful. Why bother!”
But dude, c’mon. I haven’t played much.
I’m not good.
If I want to get good, I have to practice.
If you want to get good, you have to practice.
If you’re going to practice so that you improve, you’re going to miss shots.
Heck, starting out, you’ll miss more shots than you make.
It’s not going to be pretty when you start. It’s certainly not going to be flawless!
What you do at this point determines whether or not you get better.
What you do at this point determines whether you give up or you keep trying.
Do you complain? Do you compare? Do you quit? Do you apologize?
Or do you smile, recognize that the more you practice, the faster you improve and decide to just keep taking shots and have as much fun as you can along the way?
This is life, guys.
When you learn a new habit or behavior, you’re NOT going to be perfect.
GASP.
Did I just blow your mind?
YOU ARE NOT GOING TO BE PERFECT.
Ever.
At anything.
In fact, the less consistency you’ve had, the less often you’ve practiced, the worse you’ll be.
There’s nothing wrong with you.
You don’t need to apologize.
You don’t need to confess your dietary sins.
You don’t need to complain.
You don’t need to quit.