Stop being such an achiever...


We've all seen those social media posts showing pictures of incredibly toned athletes, dripping in sweat and having just thrashed themselves to within an inch of their lives. The caption tells us or at least  implies, that this is the only standard to aim for, that the only acceptable way is to work hard - constantly. Or the picture showing the epitome of health on some sun kissed island, nibbling on the lightest salad and sipping on a green 'power' smoothie…

So what effect does this have on most 'normal' people? I'll tell you what message I receive; it tells me I'm not good enough and unless I devote 25 hours a day, 8 days a week to my health, I'll never be good enough - and I'm one of those annoyingly naturally slim people who genuinely enjoys eating healthily and doesn't have too much trouble motivating myself to workout. I can only imagine how less 'fortunate' normal human beings must be feeling!

You know what? If you don't look like that now, the chances are you never will - accept it, in fact most of those models don't look like that either. Or at least not until photoshop was invented.

So let's not concentrate on changing our lifestyle to one which we can't realistically sustain; all we need to do is change our way of thinking… Never mind what others want us to do or think we should achieve, what do we want to achieve, what do we really want our goals to be? Do we want to reach for the skies or do we just want to make small sustainable changes to continually improve our health day by day?

So if you don't workout today it's not because you're lazy, it's because your body needs a rest day and you owe it to yourself to enjoy that rest - your mind needs a day off as well as your body. Heck, maybe it needs a rest week or even rest month. In ten years time what you did or didn't do today won't make a blind bit of difference to your overall condition. Get back on it when you're good and ready.

And if you indulged in that bad lunch at work or snacked on crap all day - so what! You're not treating your body with a lack of respect; you're challenging it. In the same way it's good to shake up our exercise with different routines to shock our muscles, I believe it's also good to catch our digestive system out from time to time. Isn't that what we do with inoculations - we give our immune system a bit of whatever the particular disease is so it can learn to fight it? (The same works for eating local raw honey by the way - subjecting ourselves to the pollen in the honey helps us become immune to that pollen and so avoiding many seasonal allergies.

One of my least favourite 'motivational' quotes is; "What did you do today to take you one step closer to your goals?" As if we have to be moving forward everyday. Actually, I did nothing today that took me closer to my goals! Know the feeling, that you wasted your day? Maybe your brain needed a time out, to empty itself of pressure, to let new ideas in. If anything is full of pressure it makes sense that nothing else can get in. So if you're really not feeling motivated; switch off, go veg in front of the TV, go potter in the garage or garden, whatever takes your fancy. You're only wasting your day if you waste your day thinking about how much you're wasting day…

So what's the answer? Do your best, whatever your best happens to be right now; not yesterday, not tomorrow but right here right now! !) It's what you do most of the time that counts, not what you do occasionally. Go waste your day, and enjoy it :-)

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