I haven’t done enough. I could do more; I haven’t reached my limit yet.
This destructive voice in my head is on repeat. At work, I haven’t done enough. In my home, I haven’t done enough. In finding alternatives to emotional eating, I haven’t done enough. In lifting, I haven’t done enough.
The rubric I grade myself against is pass/fail, and the only way to pass is to do so much that I can’t possibly do more, to have overdone it. Anything less, and I have failed.
Last year, as I was learning to lift without triggering my PTSD, I had to learn to do less. To stop myself before the intensity had reached perhaps an eight out of ten. I also cut way back on my responsibilities at work and home. I’d take my to-do list and remove everything that wasn’t essential and then schedule breaks between essential tasks. I need the breaks to regulate my nervous system.
And while these strategies demonstrate an acceptance of my limits, somehow, I failed to address the underlying belief that if I could do more, I hadn’t done enough.
This belief is rampant in our society, blazing hot like a wildfire, leaving behind a scorched earth of overwhelmed, exhausted and defeated people.
This mindset is ableist, holding ourselves and others to the expectation that we can or should all produce to the same degree at all times. Comparison, inherent to this mindset, sets us up to determine if we’ve done enough based upon an external standard. Even if we succeed in only comparing ourselves to ourselves, if our past self could do more, we may automatically conclude we aren’t doing enough. How often do you find yourself feeling that you haven’t done enough because last month, last year, last decade, you used to do more? I know I’ve held myself to this ableist expectation, yearning for a time in my past when my health and mental health didn’t create so many barriers to my pursuits. The goals I’ve set for myself today must necessarily be based upon where I’m at today, not where I used to be.
This productivity mindset also interacts harmfully with fatphobia and anti-fat bias. A larger woman I know talks about how she’s constantly afraid people are judging her, seeing her as lazy. To combat this perception, she works ten to twelve-hour days and feels guilty every time she takes a break. She experiences a constant state of overwhelm as a result, which contributes to emotional overeating, because food is comforting, and she’s “doing something” when she’s eating. If someone sees her take a break for a meal, she isn’t as worried she’s going to be perceived as lazy. But, if she were to just stop, take some breaths, do a meditation? This woman is doing the hard work of learning to focus less on what others might be thinking of her. She’s also learning to let herself take a break to regulate and self-soothe in other ways besides food, but each time she does the practice, she must calm the voice that is telling her she isn’t doing enough.
Diet culture feeds on the inadequacy inherent in this mindset. Do all the things, change everything about how you eat and exercise, and when you can’t, it’s your failing, your failure, not the diet or exercise plan. Bad trainers who set up programs that don’t consider your needs and abilities can blame your lack of follow-through on not wanting it enough, not making it a priority. And if you are already inclined to believe that you never do enough unless you’ve done it all, instead of finding fault in the programming, you will place blame on yourself. The only way to find what will actually work for you, not just in the immediate future but in the long-term, is by listening to your boundaries and respecting them, before you’ve gone too far. The antithesis to diet culture is to focus on sustainable changes and letting go of the urgency of endless productivity.
I see this mindset everywhere in the lifting forums I frequent. Folks wondering if they’re doing enough, reaching always for what is optimal based upon research or another external measure rather than based upon what is optimal for themselves, at this time in their lives. Maybe we’re buying into the belief that progress needs to happen on a certain timeline. Maybe we believe that we have something to prove. Maybe we don’t even realize that we haven’t given ourselves credit for what we are doing, what we have accomplished.
The harm in never feeling that we’ve done enough is pushing ourselves too far. Maybe that leads to an injury, an illness or other physical hardship. Maybe we find ourselves in a state of doing all the things and then doing none of the things, preventing us from the growth that can come from slower, but steadier, progress. Maybe it means we dwell in a state of chronic stress. For me, it means increased dysregulation, leading to emotions that are harder to manage, spiraling down into worse decision-making, which contributes to even more stress and increased challenges in my life. I’m far less likely to regret what I’ve said or done when my emotions are regulated and I’m feeling calm and grounded.
And so, I’m learning to stop when I think I could do a bit more. I’m scheduling my lifting sessions to be a bit less than I think I can handle. I’m leaving a few reps in the tank. I’m scheduling breaks into my day. I’m leaving dishes in the sink and the cat toys dispersed on the floor. It’s not easy. That voice in my mind continues to tell me that I’m not doing enough; I could do more. And the truth is, I possibly could do more in the short term, but I’m in this for the long game. The truth is I’m doing enough.
Progressive Strength 