How often do we say to ourselves “I really should do that”? We hear others saying the same thing. On the surface, this might not seem like a problem. After all, as human beings, we want to do what we think is “right”. This is a good thing!
We get into trouble, though, when our orientation to living becomes focused on accomplishing things and checking items off of our ever growing “To Do” lists.
Having this type of external focus too easily leads us to spend our daily lives doing things based on what we think we “should” do rather than what we “want”, “need” or mindfully decide to do. Do you resonate with this?
“Should-based” living often translates into living on autopilot as we rush to get one more thing done. When we do things we think we “should” do, we believe we are being our best selves, fulfilling our responsibilities well and serving others. However, living this way can be extremely stressful, unhealthy and often undermines living purposefully. I’ve also come to believe that daily decision making and behavior based on “shoulds” can let us off the hook of taking personal responsibility.
When we say “I really should do this”, what we often mean is “I’m doing this because it’s something that I think I’m supposed to do”. It doesn’t matter if we are doing this because culture tells us to, our doctor tells us to, or we are striving to be “good” daughters, friends, wives, parents, or professionals. Making decisions primarily to fulfill shoulds prevents us from mindfully evaluating the task at hand based on its merits and whether or not it helps us achieve the things that we most value.
In essence, should-based living neglects and starves our unique sense of self. Maybe this is why so many of us feel hungry all of the time. Maybe we are craving our own essence, our sense of WHO WE ARE.
“Should-based living” breeds imbalance. Living on autopilot, living as “human doings” instead of human beings is, ironically, often the path of least resistance. It is often easier to do what we feel is expected of us than it is to do the hard work of figuring out what it is we want to get out of life.
Every one of us is unique. But if our daily behavior only fulfills what we think we’re supposed to do, we miss the opportunity to fully express our uniqueness. Should-based living comes easily to most women. We have been socialized to be good mothers, wives, and friends. To be conscientious employees. To volunteer in our communities. And much more. As we contemplate the decisions that fill up our days, it is important for us to understand why we might be inclined to live a should-based life. But, the most important thing, is to evaluate if the manner in which we live and make those decisions is taking responsibility FOR our life or abdicating it?
Taking responsibility for living life on our own terms can be scary stuff. But, from my perspective, the alternative is scarier. Feeling detached, drained, and unmotivated on a daily basis. Of course we want balance in our lives and we get balance, in part, through serving others and fulfilling our responsibilities. But if most of your energy is consumed by the “shoulds” you might be missing out on inner peace and a sense of balance. You may be endangering your well-being and health.
We all deserve to become our best selves and to lead fulfilling and meaningful lives. It’s our right as humanbeings.
At the risk of being cliché, I’m compelled to write this post in between Thanksgiving and New Years about how the holiday season offers us an opportunity to give thanks to our bodies, something too many women don’t do.
Many of us have been worn down by societal images that depict beauty as coming only in small sizes. We’ve spent thousands of dollars in pursuit of this narrow and culturally-synthesized ideal. So many moments of our daily life have been spent bemoaning our lack of will power and loathing parts of our bodies.
Some women have been lucky to have escaped the quagmire caused by our obsession with what food we want to eat compared to what we think we “should” eat. They either never felt pressure to diet or lose weight or just decided they were not going to let someone else’s rules dictate their eating.
But most women are not so lucky. Most have succumbed to cultural pressures and yearn to fit the one-size-fits-all mold. This yearning has led women to spend 20 to 30 years of their lives cycling through diet and exercise programs, eventually giving up when results don’t match expectations. The most unfortunate part of the diet/exercise cycle is that it causes too many women to loathe their bodies and feel that they have failed INSTEAD OF recognizing that they were set up to fail. The aim of this cyclical paradigm has been to produce consumer behavior, not sustainable lifestyles. Once this fact is recognized, women can start forging their own unique paths to healthy and satisfying lifestyle behaviors instead of buying another “magic bullet” that will set them up to fail.
A great way to start this new mindset and approach is to recognize with gratitude what our bodies actually do for us. Instead of focusing on the most superficial aspects of our bodies (literally and figuratively), such as subcutaneous fat, let’s focus on its core abilities and functions; the things that make our bodies incredible.
- The ability to move our bodies by our sheer will.
- The energy to work on projects that are meaningful and exciting.
- Well functioning digestive and elimination processes. We don’t appreciate these until we learn that when they don’t work well our daily quality of life is drastically reduced.
- The ability to see the exquisite colors fushcia, orange, and violet.
- The ability to wrap our arms around our loved ones and express to them our appreciation.
- Resilience to breakthrough tough times and come out on the other side.
Aren’t these things worth SO much more than any excess pounds we might be caring around? Do you treat your body with sufficient respect and appreciation for what it does for you?
I hope you might reflect on that question. And if your answer is no, than I offer you this: Now is a great time to start thinking about ONE single thing that you may want to try doing differently as a way to show increased appreciation for your body, a central part of your self.
Appreciating what you have instead of resenting it, is a much better place to be if you want to make changes that will help you feel and live better.
Consider this choice as we approach the holidays and pave our way toward making our New Years Resolutions for 2010.
How do you want to feel in 2010? What health and well-being related goals have you tried to achieve in the past that haven’t been sustainable? Are you going to continue striving for what others tell you that you should achieve, or would you like to start following your own intuition and voice? If the latter interests you, but you don’t know where to start or how to get there, I’d love to help.
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At lunch last week, my friend Isabella told me that she wasn’t exercising because she’s just lazy. My response? “Isabella, I don’t believe in lazy”. I’ve found that when women say they are too lazy to exercise it’s usually a smoke screen for what’s really going on.
The first reason women conclude they are lazy is because they are simply tired from successfully juggling and achieving A LOT. Being tired and needing to relax is very different than laziness. The challenge for women who feel too tired to exercise is to learn how to determine when resting and relaxing their bodies is what they most need (something that is really important to do at times) and when they’d be better off doing some form of physical activity to increase their energy and improve their mood.
The second reason that women erroneously conclude they are lazy is because they compare themselves against too high of a standard. We were told for most of our adult lives that exercise had to be hard and vigorous to be of benefit. On top of that, when we see some of our friends training for marathons or spinning every day, something that confirms our suspicion that we are lazy!
Contrary to what fitness companies want us to believe, newer research shows us that exercise doesn’t have to be vigorous to be of benefit and that all types and durations of movement “count”. But regardless of science, if intense exercise is unappealing (which it is for most women in midlife, including myself much of the time) we won’t do it anyway.
Bottom line: There is no need to compare ourselves to anyone else when it comes to being physically active or feeling like we need to do it their way. (That would be like comparing what you like in bed with what others enjoy and then condemning yourself for not being like them!)
The fix? Just change the definition of exercise from what you think exercise SHOULD be (because that’s what others are doing) to one that incorporates the types of physical activities and movement that feels good TO YOU. By the way, what feels good to do will and should change based on how you feel on any given day and time. You will discover that the idea of being laziness becomes much less relevant. Not only will you not feel lazy but you’ll wind up doing more physical activity.
One of my wonderful clients made a great analogy between how differently we approach exercising than we do eating a meal. She said that sometimes we only have time to grab something quick, when we are on the go, as a meal. She pointed out that this strategy is acceptable to us for eating but not for exercising. Her point is very insightful and I want to expand upon it below.
Most busy women would never consider the concept that they have to cook an elaborate dish for EVERY meal. Why? Because we don’t have time to have our meals always be elaborate and great. We know that depending upon any given day and time, our eating strategies have to change. In general, we probably do have specific strategies we use for our and our family’s meals. However, we know that our meal plans can “go out of the window” at any point, and we’ll just have to improvise and often eat to a “lower standard” than we want and/or had planned to.
In contrast, many of us don’t give ourselves the same leeway for exercising as we do eating! We make exercise plans and goals that we feel we need to rigidly follow. We don’t give ourselves many options or give ourselves permission to be flexible with our exercise plans. So, when “life happens”, as it always does, most of us do not improvise with our physical activity/exercise plans, like we do with eating. The result of this rigid approach (e.g., one that does not permit improvisation or flexibility) is that we wind up not doing ANY physical activity. (We’d starve if we did this with eating.)
However, most people would benefit by developing a mindset about exercising that parallels their mindset about eating. We should have general strategies and goals for being physically active, but similar to eating, have flexibility, back-up options, and/or strategies. Similar to grabbing a liquid meal or hunk of cheese when we don’t have time for our planned sit down meal, when time is tight, and we can’t do our planned exercise session, let’s improvise and figure out the “next best” thing. It could be parking further away for your meeting, getting off the train 1-2 stops earlier, or asking a friend to walk after dinner. Whether it is later that day, the next day, or a “lower standard” of physical activity(is there really such a thing?!), give yourself the same permission to improvise with physical activity as you do with food. Follow this M. Segar recipe and you’ll have consistent on-going physical activity in your life!
Footnote: It is interesting that eating is considered by many to be “essential” to living our best lives, and exercise isn’t. Yet, having a more flexible approach seems to accompany eating more than with exercising. Why are people more flexible with the behavior that is, for the most part, considered more essential to living?
By focusing our New Year’s resolutions and efforts on the “outcomes” (e.g., losing weight, getting organized) we often rush into the behaviors that we hope will get us there. But, it is the BEHAVIORS THEMSELVES that determine our ultimate success and our ability to persevere over time.
We should think about the behaviors that are essential to achieving our desired goals and choose one to focus on at the beginning of this important endeavor. It is important to understand that changing eating habits and becoming more physically active are VERY different behaviors and should be treated as such. The conventional approach to lose weight suggests focusing on both diet and exercise concurrently. If your goal is to lose as much weight as you can quickly starting to diet and exercise at the same time will get you the best results. But if your goal is to achieve a fairly large weight loss goal and/or you want to SUSTAIN the weight you lose, think about a different approach.
Changing your eating habits and learning how to make exercise a regular and consistent part of your life at the same time is very challenging. Eating and exercise each have their own “tasks” and “rules” associated with them. Both require distinct discipline, and have associations with separate sets of emotions (often negative). Think about how likely it is that we can learn how to integrate these two very distinct behaviors into our lives so we can sustain them both over time? You know if your previous efforts to initiate diet and exercising at the same time have worked for you long-term. If they have, continue to do it. If they haven’t, why not try a different approach?
