It’s like black or white, rich or poor, fat or skinny,
strong or weak. For some reason we believe that we must be put into boxes; that
our lives and lifestyles can only be defined as one or the other and grey
doesn’t exist.
Interestingly enough this duality actually leads some of us
to run a strategy of all or nothing. Society perpetuates this with messages
like go hard or go home. What if showing up and trying the best to your
capabilities was all you could do? When we kid ourselves into thinking that we
must go at our very hardest or there is no point going at all we create a sense
of feeling that we are not good enough. A sense that our best on the day may be
best left at home if we can’t go hard.
Now for many people this all or nothing thinking doesn’t
apply. If they have some weight to lose, are learning an instrument or playing
a sport; they are happy to have fun with it, give it their best and normally
achieve their goals in a timely manner without too much mental angst if
holidays away interrupt their training or they had some birthday cake at the
office this week. These people can go hard and often do. They can also go home
with no guilt or self punishment, they can even show up and be present in their
activity irrelevant of the accolades, achievements or outside approval and be
happy for doing so.
So for us all or nothing’s out there who torture themselves
for not having “it all” right now in this very moment, who decide one day that
they are getting fit and bust their arses for 3 solid months and deny
themselves the pleasures of life only to reach their goal, look and feel great
and then sit on the coach eating chocolate for the next 3 months only to start
the whole cycle all over again come January; is there hope? Are we hardwired to
keep on this up and down cycle of intense motivation or complete apathy and
laziness?
We’ll the answer is I don’t know, but I think there is hope.
I’ve spent a life time believing that if I can’t do it now then what’s the
point of trying; that if I can’t have immediate satisfaction of the ultimate
result now then I may as well just give up- all or nothing you see. I’ve also
spent half a lifetime attempting to overcome this and the irony has presented
itself time and time again. As I attempt to overcome it, I want it done now and
if I haven’t changed my thinking about this now then will I ever? Isn’t it
funny, I run the exact same pattern of all or nothing as I attempt to overcome
my all or nothing pattern of thinking.
There have been many things in my life that I thought I
could not do, things that were reserved for other people for example “ families
like us don’t have wealth and success” “ girls like me don’t become dancers,
skaters or models”. There has been an ever present thinking model that’s underlying
message is “I’m not good enough for that”. That somehow someone else is good
enough for that but I am not. It actually goes one step further than “I’m not
good enough”, what comes after that is the even quieter whisper of “ so don’t
even bother, you’ll just be disappointed”. Pretty damaging don’t you think?
This all or nothing
is really a “nothing” mentality masked by bursts of inspiration and
courage that maybe we could be “all”. For fleeting moments we jump out of the
slump of not being good enough just long enough to believe that we can and that
we might even get to wherever we want to go. If this lasts for long enough we
achieve our goal and then it gets even more complicated. You see when we
finally get to where we wanted to go we have to find a catch. The “ I’m not
good enough” thinking has to find a reason why you got to where you got to and
justify how you are not worthy of it. So we sabotage, self deprecate, give the
credit to others or simply just move the goal posts. Saying to ourselves “ I’ve
lost 20 kg but I still have flabby arms, I can only run 10kms in an hour” or
something to that affect. We effectively put ourselves back to the bottom of
the pile where we think we belong despite a long history of small or even large
success.
For the past 2 years I have been learning to roller skate,
well to play roller derby in fact. A full contact, all female sport on quad
skates. 2 years ago it took me 15 minutes to stand up. I had never stepped onto
anything on wheels without having a very strong corridor at home to hold me up
and that was 25 years ago! So of course I wanted to be able to skate like a
star immediately, with all the grace and balance of a figure skater in less
than 3 months. Well wasn’t I in for a big shock? It turns out that to learn a new
skill takes hours upon hours upon hours to even get the basics down pat and
then takes 10s of thousands of hours more to get brilliant at it. I have broken
both my wrists, bulged a disk in my back and chipped my ankle bone and that was
all whilst I was “ fresh meat” ( the most entry level you can skate at).
A very wise man told me early along in the training journey
that “ If you are not falling over then you are not skating hard enough”. Well
this was news to me. I thought I had to stay on my feet the whole time, that I
shouldn’t fall as that would be failing and proof that I wasn’t good enough. As
it turns out in order to succeed you must fail. It is the very key to success.
In falling we learn to value where we are at. We learn more
by tripping than we do by getting it right. There is little to learn by doing
it right first and every time. What I’ve learnt by falling is who I have to be
to get back up. The fear barriers that I have had to cross to get back on
skates despite the pain of broken bones still being fresh in my mind have
taught me that I am good enough. Each time I fall and get back up I have given
myself another reference point as to how far I have come and appreciate where I
am now.
Believing that we must get rid of all or nothing thinking is
running the same pattern of all or nothing and reminds us that where we are now
is somehow not good enough. To be happy and successful however you define it is
to learn to be happy with grey. Not black or white but all the wonderful shades
in between. Be rainbow, be black, be whatever shade the world has to offer and
if you don’t like any of them then create your own.
Grey is what happens on the way. It’s the falling and
getting back up, it’s resting when you need to knowing that it doesn’t matter
how long it takes to get there as getting there is often the most fun. It’s
learning to let go of the “how” and trust the “why”. It’s about learning to
love life as you go through the crazy roller coaster ride it is and trusting
within yourself that you already have it “all” you just haven’t fallen over
enough times to realise it.
