How do you do it?? Honestly, how do you ALL seem to do it?? Everyone seems to have their shit together. I go round people’s houses and its spotless, I just have to walk through mine, turn around and a tornados hit it. I go to work and a senior member of staff; super busy, two kids, plays sports herself, always driving the kids to this place or that match, comes into work with a 7 tier red velvet cake with deeeelish cream frosting, baked over the weekend cause her daughter had a sleep over; I’m just grateful I managed to make my lunch this morning! Friends religiously go to the gym 5 times a week, no excuses; I can wake up one morning and think ‘fuck it, I can’t be bothered’ and sack it off for 2 weeks. You log every single calorie on my Fitness Pal and have the ability to have ONE cheat meal; Im very good at logging the milk from my morning coffee – cheat meal, more like cheat week! You put money away every single month; me too, only to take it out again 2 weeks later. You don’t buy stuff you don’t need and have some sort of superpower that allows you to walk away from a purchase, no matter how big, small or relevant to whether you actually need it. I see it, like it, want it, need it, buy it. Colleagues come into work and are focused ALL DAY, beavering around, typing fast, running to this meeting or that conference call; I sit there thinking ‘fucking hell, how is it only 10.30am, I’m starving when’s lunch’.
Am I the only one that feels the treadmill of life has gotten faster, consistently so, over the last few years?? Because to be honest I sometimes struggle to keep up, I get puffed out more than I use to, the world is too fast. And everything needs/or can be done right now, and, apparently easier?!? We now have AI Chat platforms, no need to pause take a minute and use our brains, we’re told to use the tools available to work more efficiently and effectively so we can be given more. Leave the office at 5pm but someone needs you at 6pm, no problem at all, we’ve all downloaded Teams to our mobiles……. ‘just a quick request please, should only take you 5 mins, its urgent’ (for who!!). Forgot to buy milk on the way home; no problem someone can rock up on a scooter bring it straight to your front door. Struggle to lose weight; inject yourself once a week. The joy (sometimes stress) of redecorating your home, the pause (or frustration) of time spent buying magazines or googling ideas popping to the shops to mooch and buy tester paint to splosh on a wall and spend a few days looking at them; oh don’t bother with that there’s plentiful apps, just take a photo, tell it what you want, and boom your new room, it’ll even tell you where to buy, better yet, just give it your credit card details, you just need to click collection or home delivery. ………..
But sometimes, sometimes I just need to pause for a second, catch my breath, but I’ve now found a fuck it button and when found, I hit it hard and sometimes for too long.
If I sit still and watch everyone, it feels like no one else has a fuck it button, you all seem to be doing so well, grateful for the tools handed to you with the ability to take on more shit. I’m in awe of you all, but how do you do it, did you all get taught something in school and I just wasn’t listening.
Lets back up a sec and see Becky firing on all cylinders
I wake early, between 4.30 – 5.30am (I’m writing this at 5.52am on a Sunday, yep I need a life and/or get laid, I know, I’m trying!) I don’t wake up at this time by choice, I think it’s a mix of perimenopause/needing a wee and can’t get back to sleep/ the cat walking all over me saying ‘wake up human and feed me’ or, I went to bed early the night before because I was tired cause Ive been up since 4.30!! Thankfully I’m a morning person, I’ll sit on the sofa, fresh coffee in hand manifesting the great day ahead. I mentally write a list of all the things I wanna achieve with so much energy, ready for the day ahead.
5.20am I’m at the gym. I love love love going to the gym, I have my set routine, weights 3 times a week, cardio once a week. Seeing progress is amazing, lifting heavier when I reach 3 sets of 15, seeing 15secs shorter on a run, or managing to add 30 seconds to the Stairmaster (whoever invented the Stairmaster needs an uppercut to the kidneys!). and every time, without fail, I’ll walk out that gym a little taller, endorphins racing skipping to the car, puts me in a great mood all day!
Breakfast and lunch is prepared and in the bag, dinner confirmed and in the fridge. I don’t even let the mouth breather on the train that sits next to me nearly making me vomit, or the person standing over me who clearly hasn’t had a shower – no excuse – how can you smell that bad, on a MONDAY at 7.15am, dampen my mood! I log onto my computer with a smile patiently awaiting the emails loading up from everyone and anyone, asking me to do work that isn’t mine cause you know it will be done. With 2 Liters of water infront of me, specs on, swagger and banter at the ready, I’m set, bring it on!
My weekends usually start in the same way, great plans for the day ahead, I’m up and ready to power through, ticking things off my list that are easy and quite, I dont hoover cause I dont want to be known as the spinster crazy cat lady up at this time pissing off the neighbours. I’m on time and ready to meet whoever Ive plan to meet, to do whatever exciting things we have planned.
Now lets look at Becky not firing on all cylinders
Sometimes I have the ability to hit the fuck it button and boy do I hit it hard! I wake up (still between 4.30-5.30, in case you were wondering) sit on the sofa with my fresh cup of coffee and boom, Ive sat on the fuck it button, I fuck the gym off, I know I should go for a walk, but bollocks I dont want to. I should count my calories today, but fuck it I shouldn’t need to, thin people don’t count their calories. Bollocks to it all, I don’t want to play. I can’t be bothered to do anything and its always around the same things, general exercise/gym, food, spending money, tidy house, fresh air – and the stupidest thing of all – these things are all in my control, they’re also mentally and physically all the good things to keep me at my baseline level of happiness and should be my non-negotiables, but yet the easiest things to stop. During this time, I still go to work, show my best self, see family and friends and laugh, but with a sense of ‘fuck it’ hovering around, like an umbrella in a storm. The healthy lunches go in the bin and a meal deal is bought cause I fancy something nice. The dinner in the fridge stays there and a take away is ordered, eagerly looking out the window for the delivery guy (always a guy, never a gal on the scooter!) oh and not forgetting the nice cake I bought myself on the way home from work as a treat that I do NOT need. I then decide to eat the whole cake, cause I will back on it tomorrow and don’t want it in the house
I look at the house and can’t be bothered to tidy it up, cause let’s be honest, I’m the only one that sees it. By 7.01pm bra is off, PJ’s on, vegged out on the sofa, flicking through the aimlessly boring shit on the telly waiting for an appropriate time for an adult to go to bed, giving myself a good talking to that tomorrow I’ll get my shit together……….. This can last weeks
Then, one morning, I’ll wake up stiff with an achy back cause Ive not moved my body enough and old lady syndrome is kicking in and an increase of lb’s flash up on the scales that I didn’t really see yesterday.
And all of a sudden the gym gear is on and off I go. Healthy eating habits kick back in and IM BACK baby!!! The full version of my best self, getting shit done, tidy house, 15k steps each day, yoga, meditation, booking days out and adventures. Swagger and banter ready to fire off as and when required. I feel good, back to my baseline level of true self.
But how do I break this cycle, why do I have this cycle? Ive done it for years and think it’s a massive part of keeping me stuck. Does my mind get overwhelmed with self-progression, subconsciously gets scared, my gremlin don’t like it cause we’re pushing pass its line of control so kicks in just at the point when Im ready to go up a level, the gremlin wins, it pulls me back to ‘still’ cause its safe here and we know this road/hallway. Ive also been wondering is it cause I don’t properly schedule annual leave and get to a point of a ‘baby’ burn-out, my mind is just done and needs a minute.
Playing both these roles is easy, they’re not forced and I’m not depressed. Is it because I’m single, no kids so the fuck it button is just easier/quicker to press? Is it because there’s no one at home to chat things through with or bitch about my day’s struggles so they manifest, build up and spill over? Or does everyone have a fuck it button and we’re all just really good at hiding it, do we all feel like this but no one wants to share cause everyone looks like they’re totally bossing through life
I was hoping to write all my blogs with either a process that I have walked through, or a struggle I’m experiencing with a solution or a promise that I’ll have to honour and follow cause that’s the whole reason I started this. Are some of you screaming at your device telling me it’s a coping mechanism from childhood and I need therapy. Or am I normal and we all have struggles, whatever they look like, shit to deal with, but we have to show up, as our best self, all day every day. Are we all trying to do the best that we can, with the tools we have, but when the doors are closed, we sometimes crumble a bit and need to lay on the sofa, recharge, refocus, shut out the world for a while cause the pace is too fast, to then jump back on the treadmill that has somehow got a nano second faster than when I jumped off. Do I need to set a slower consistency to keep up, jog a little slower, fast enough to keep up with the pace of change and be better, but slow enough that the fuck it button then becomes so far out of reach I don’t then feel the need to turn around, run back to press it.
I’ve sat on this for weeks trying to find an answer. Last week I was laying on the sofa fuck it button watching telly and something hit me. The guy on the telly said ‘thoughts become your words; your words become your actions; your actions become your habits; your habits become your character; your character becomes your destiny’ WOW!! He also said ‘Don’t be scared about the thief in the alley who’s after your purse, be scared of the thief in your brain that is after your promises’ Thoughts carry power; power carries energy. (the wonderful amazing Emmett J Scanlan on Joe Marler Will See You Now)
So is that were I’m going wrong, do I wake up one morning, maybe a little more tired than usual, or still pissed off at something that happened the day before and a spilt second thought of, ‘I can’t be bothered’ enters my brain and the spiral begins – thoughts = words = actions = habits = character = destiny!
Therefore, do I need to build on my self-discipline because all the things I stop doing are the very core to keeping my baseline of happiness and how I show up for myself and others. I don’t need more motivation that only gets you so far. Honesty; patience; empathy; independence; resourcefulness; adaptability; self-awareness; curiosity; initiative – I don’t need any of those. I think its self-discipline, consistency, self-control – that’s what I need to work on.
To have the self-discipline to do what needs to be done, even when I don’t feel like it.
To have the consistency to repeat the ‘new’ behaviours regularly
And a major one; self-control: to manage my impulses, emotions and reactions rather than acting on every feeling or urge.
So lets remove the fuck it button and try channelling Emmett’s theories and build upon my new behavioural traits. If I wake up and have the urge to fuck it all, instead of acting on that, sit with it and label it right there and then. Ask myself if that’s how I want to show up for a few weeks, the answer will always be no, and then channel self-control and self-discipline. Go for the walk or to the gym, even if I only walk round the block or do a crap weight sesh, I still went, I still showed up for myself. No one comes out the gym feeling mentally worse than when they went in, or comes back from a walk feeling more sluggish and shit than when they left.
So, there we go: I’ve just uncovered some behavioural traits I didn’t even know I had, dug deep into the “why”, and, fingers crossed, found a way to work and walk through them. I don’t know yet if this is the answer or my big lightbulb moment, but what I do know is I’ve been typing for hours, it’s Sunday, and I need to get my arse to the gym, that bastard Stairmaster has my name on it!
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