It seems like these days we’re bombarded with motivational pictures on our Facebook news feeds that are geared to the pressure of extremes.
“It’s all or nothing.”
“Be more. Do more.”
“Give everything you’ve got”
“Your workout is my warm-up”
“Be better.”
“Stop admiring other people’s bodies and make other people
admire yours”
“100% clean eating”
“What you eat in private, you wear in public”
….you get the gist.
Now, don’t get me wrong.
If you are full into your sports performance gains and pushing yourself
to new fitness levels, striving for this kind of excellence is what the
ultimate goal should be.
But if you’re juggling family life, a full-time job, being
an adult-learner at school, on parent committees, or kids are in
extra-curricular activities (and the list goes on…) AND your goal is to lose
weight or gain muscle, how will extremes work for you?
My problem with extremes is that they lead to guilt and
feelings of defeat.
Good intentions (making stellar exercise plans and food prepared
for the week etc) get thrown into a loop when life gets slammed your way –
health problems pop up, injuries, family members in the hospital, loss of job,
too many late nights leaving you exhausted, etc etc. Then that exercise plan gets pushed aside and
a quick McDonald’s meal looks a whole lot easier in an already stressful
week.
Does this sound familiar?
You find you’re making the exact same goals again for the
following week. And week after week.
Let me paint you a picture.
You've been chasing your weight-loss goal for a long time
now. You keep trying to be perfect. Eat perfect.
Exercise to the extreme and get perfect results.
But you keep ‘slipping up’.
It’s very normal to jump to the extreme that weight-loss or
healthy active living isn't for you. We jump to the “Real women have curves” saying to find comfort, not thinking of how being overweight is affecting our heart health or increasing our risks for very preventable diseases, and we figure being overweight 40lbs
doesn't really matter for our health as that must be what your body wants,
seeing as the weight hasn't budged in over a year.
Extremes. Right away our minds jumps there.
It’s hard to balance life.
We go through phases of extreme motivation to better ourselves, inside
and out, and the other extreme of being down on ourselves and not really caring
about how we feel or our health.
Raise the bar. Raise the bar high for yourself. Strive for excellence.
But allow wiggle room.
Do keep those goals and try to achieve better results each
time.
Self-improvement and striving for excellence has a place in our lives.
It has to have a
PLACE though – it can’t be EVERYTHING.
When trying to be perfect (trying to be the extreme) is EVERYTHING in your life, you will disappoint yourself. It’s inevitable. I speak from personal experience. I try to be the best at everything I do. Perfect in my studies. Perfect in my family. Perfect in my fitness goals. Perfect in my appearance. Perfect in my food habits. Perfect in my job. The list goes on.
And where does the stress of perfection take me?
My challenge for you today is to love yourself. No matter what extreme you are in. Or even if you’ve found that sweet balance in-between.
Then think of ways you can strive for excellence in your everyday
life so that you don’t find yourself falling into patterns of extremes.
As always, lots of love from me to you.
Naomi.