Control

It’s been a bit of a tricky week at project badassery. Whoever is in charge (me) has gone totally berserk and got very stressed out by a few days of missed training. I started at the gym to manage stress so what happens when training becomes the stress? The cure can feel like it’s turning to poison when one’s stance on it becomes absolute.

Expectations vs Reality
I can plan and dream all I want about performing at a high level in and out of training but sometimes it just doesn’t happen. This week was one of those weeks. Life things kept me out of the gym – just for a few days. Such is adulting. And because my focus was elsewhere I also found I had limited motivation even when I got to the gym. Still, no biggie, right?

Turns out the worst thing about this week was not actually the ‘off plan’-ness:-

My error was not not executing at 100% in every single area of my life, all at the same time. The error was that in not doing so I let it throw me for a complete loop; feeling like an actual failure (I know, I know)
The level of panic at not being able to control all aspects of my physical life in the week was extremely mentally uncomfortable for me
And I also suspect that when this sort of panic sets in it can cause one to give up altogether in an all or nothing sort of ‘oh well fuck it’ funk or go all-in with the off-plan-ness to make the re-start that much harder.

I don’t know why my brain does this; let’s just accept that there are many of us who like to feel that we are more in control of our lives than we actually are:-

By having routines or daily physical challenges we feel that we are progressing, improving
Even whilst I know that thinking I can control everything, or even anything, is a mirage I feel happier when I can stick to my plans
My training is also enjoyable for me and makes me feel good physically and mentally, so it’s not a punishment
But it is not always do-able. And it is so important for me to remember that this is a good thing because I am not in a race to be 100% disciplined. I don’t want to be subjugated by some sort of of self-imposed impossible standard.

I remembered (too late to not have suffered the days of stress) that the practice of rational emotional behavioural therapy was there all along to help me deal with the frustration I was feeling. And this is what I turn to now as I quickly recover from feeling down about dropping the gym ball and which could apply to any other examples of absolute thinking causing stress, anywhere in life:-

REBT is all about having preferences, not demands
It’s OK to want things
For me, I would prefer to be a boss in the gym, because I like that feeling
So it’s not that I am trying to convince myself that I don’t care about not being able to train
Rather, it is my strong preference to be able to stick to the great weekly routine I have, because I enjoy it
But it doesn’t HAVE TO happen every single week, perfectly, without fail
Because that is an unrealistic and unreasonable demand, that can never be satisfied
And that’s why my demand for absolutely consistency caused the stress when I (inevitably) couldn’t keep it up
Until I remembered that it is my preference, not a demand
It’s not that the gym turned bad on me, it’s that my absolutist thinking had turned it from a stress-relieving into a stress-activating event.

I was actually going to write about other training things this week including all sorts of stuff that interests and excites me about competitiveness and motivation, but first I had to sidetrack to describe how my wrong thinking could have been solved so much more easily than I managed it – with a dose of rationality.

So, calm restored. Tomorrow is another day, and you never know, after a bit of a longer rest I might just knock it out of the park in my leg session.