Don’t Compound Your Mistakes

This is a reminder to you (and to myself as well) to give yourself infinite restarts. If you have one bad day, don’t follow it up with two.

Expect mistakes to happen. After all, we are only human.

As simple and seemingly basic advice this may be, once you do really understand this advice to the point where it feels like its a deep undercurrent to your being, it will be the key to set yourself free from any sort of negative feeling about anything really in life.

In this context, we are talking about our health so we will focus on that because it will happen SO often, and will continue to over the years.

“Time wasted spent thinking about previous wasted time, is wasting time”

-Unknown

A key principle in taking care of your health and keeping going is this idea that once we have a bad day, or give in to foods we feel we shouldn’t, or miss a week of workouts or taking care of ourselves, means there is a falling off the wagon, that its permanently messed up, or a grave mistake that will take mountains of work to undo OR to the extreme – that it’s f*****d anyway so what’s the point of trying again?

This leads to beating ourselves up about things that didn’t go the way we thought they should – these are deceptions and not in keeping with reality.

To help you see things differently, here are 3 things to do when facing this recurrent situation in our lives

Unpopular Opinion: You Might Need To Do A Bit Extra To Rebuild Momentum

The truth is you might have taken yourself a lil bit too far and you might need to do a bit EXTRA than usual in order to settle somewhere along the middle. Here’s what i mean: you might need to do an extra 30 minutes cardio after a big meal for one session and then continue with your regular routine after that.

Usually we say if you let some time go by, you don’t have to “make up” for it or just continue as usual, but the reality is sometimes you do need the extra workout after that holiday binge, to restabilise yourself and kick yourself off back into your healhier lifestyle.

If you’ve gone too far in one direction – ie doing no workouts or overeating for a week – to get back into your routine, a running start to burn off the extra glycogen, or a “clean eating” day where you avoid processed food for 3 days to resensitise your taste buds to natural food and remove sugar cravings can be necessary.

As you get older, you tend to have less leeway to get away with more unhealthy behaviours and so its more advisabe to just not stop ie keep momentum of eating well and exercising without going overboard or stopping, because if you DO stop, you need some extra momentum and “Activation energy” to reignite your healthy engine.

Remember The Bigger Picture

What is one week of missed workout in the context of YOUR LIFE? One whole pizza instead of 2 small pizzas in the context of ALL THE FOOD YOU’LL EAT IN YOUR LIFE??

Zoom out and remember you have your whole life to live and within that context, you really have so much room for things not to go “according to plan” yet still live a wonderfully healthy life.

Even the pass mark for most exams is 51% ie you can get 49% of the answers wrong and still pass the class. For nutrition and lifestyle we aim a little higher to make it a lifestyle ie a way of being so it looks more like 70-80% in general, but you can make it far and as long as you don’t stay down, there’s nothing absolutely wrong.

You just have to be healthier on average, which means you don’t need to ALWAYS get it right, just aim to get it more in line with your goals than not, as often as you can, when you remember.

Just Keep Getting Back On The Horse

Fall down 7 times, get up 8. There’s no limit to how many times to redirect yourself back on to course. If anything, that’s exactly what life is.

You move, then overshoot, then you have to correct back on to the course. There’s no finish line, there’s no final destination, there’s no place to reach and then you’re done with everything. The aim isn’t to get to a point and stop, it’s to keep going; it’s an infinite game in which the aim is to stay in shape because of all the positive benefits it gives you.

The reason people say it’s a lifestyle is because it is. As long as you have a body, and exist in the physical realm, the laws of reality and nature will apply., including maintaining the body.

The good news is that the body is very resilient and responsive to your efforts.

Mistakes Will Happen – Increase Your Self Compassion To Match

Literally. Actually. It’s part of the journey. Truly understanding this idea can bring you to the reality that you KNOW it but you still may be prone to self-chastising, feeling bad and pretty unforgiving to yourself when lifus interruptus(life events getting in the way) occurs.

You may even notice that if it was instead a friend or loved one who didn’t stick to the plan or missed a few healthy commitments, you’re quick to reassure and support them – yet for yourself, you tend to be very harsher and more critical.

This all too common experience is a sign of a need to direct more compassion and understanding towards the person who ultimately needs it the most and lots of it all the time – yourself.

Self kindness goes a long way when you realise you get nowhere by beating yourself up – but be cautious of falling to far along the road of compassion and it turning into complacency – a topic i will be making a post about soon.

In summary, the totality of life is grey, mixed with mistakes and progress is still made as long as we keep pushing forward with the right mindset and determination.

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