The Lie That You Can Always Be Better or More

Last Monday night I set my alarm for 5:30am to get up for a 6am workout class. My plan was to go to that class, then come home, shower, get ready, go to to work and then go to an afternoon meeting.

This was my Tuesday plan.

What happened instead? Well, Monday night I couldn’t sleep because I was having one of those can’t-shut-your-brain off kinda nights, so when 5:30am rolled around, I hadn’t been asleep long enough to be functional at 6am.

I eventually rolled out of bed around 7am and felt frustrated with myself for not sleeping well and failing to wake up in time. So I resolved to attend the 10:30am workout class instead.

I was going to exercise on Tuesday no matter what.

I show up for the 10:30am class and notice everyone seems to be really sweaty and tired already. Am I late? Did I already miss the warm up? I look at the instructor and mouth, “This is the 10:30, right?”

No, she mouths back. This is the 9:45.

There is no 10:30 class. In my sleep deprived stupor I made up that time and arrived 45 minutes late to a one-hour class.

I left the gym, tired and defeated. I went home and, unable to let go of the idea that I needed to workout today, I went for a run in the sweltering Nashville June heat and almost died.

By the time this shenanigan was over, so was half of my day. Driving to my afternoon appointment, I beat myself up for not only missing the 6am class but for thwarting my entire schedule and wasting time.

I was very mean to myself last Tuesday.

If I had been kind to myself that morning when I couldn’t drag myself out of bed at the crack of dawn, I would have simply let go of working out that day and proceeded with other activities.

Instead, I ignored the little voice inside that was quietly tapping me saying, “It’s ok. Let this one go. Burn calories tomorrow or the next day, or whenever.” Because this nice little voice inside me is often overcome by the loud angry YOU CAN ALWAYS BE BETTER voice that also lives inside me.

This voice says things like, “You’re a failure at sleep, and working out and you better make this right.” And it says lots of other mean and untrue things all the time. It’s exhausting to listen to, but I do anyways.

As long as I keep listening, it will keep talking because the thing with the YOU CAN ALWAYS BE BETTER voice is, it is never satisfied. You can feed it and feed it and make it to the gym at 6am every single day and still, it would want more from you.

But you wouldn’t listen to someone in your life you knew was mean and a liar would you? So why listen to the mean liar inside of you?

When we choose not to listen to our harsh voices, we starve them. They can’t survive if we’re not doing what they tell us to do. And eventually if we starve them long enough, they go away.

So this is what I’m trying to do now when it comes to the gym, and my body and a lot of different things. I’m ignoring the mean me, and paying more attention to the quiet and kind me. I might miss more 6am classes, but at least I’ll like myself at the end of the day.