Over the last few years, I’ve been caught in a perfectionism loop with my lifting. I find moments of more peaceful existence with my exercise habits, but eventually, those perfectionism thoughts take hold, push aside my reasonable, wise self, and the systems crash for a while. I can’t do everything I want to do, and so I stop doing any of it for a while.
I don’t write about this challenge because I’m proud of it. The opposite, actually. I feel embarrassed because some part of me, that part I think of as my wise self, knows better. If a friend were to come to me for advice, saying they can’t do what they want to do for exercise but “is it worth it to do this seemingly lesser thing?” my answer would be an unconditional, “yes.”
Yes, of course doing what you can right now is enough. Yes, of course doing something is better than going too hard and then doing nothing while you recover. Yes, of course you only build fitness, stamina and resilience by finding a system you can maintain sustainably. Yes, of course.
Our thoughts and feelings influence how we do a thing, how often we do a thing, whether or not we keep doing the thing when it feels hard, or boring, or as I’ve been struggling with, uninspiring.
So, I talk about my thoughts and in doing so, I hope I’m showing the pitfalls of perfectionism. In writing out my last post, I could see clearly how I was setting myself up for failure over and over again. I wasn’t consistently celebrating continuing to do something, continuing to show up for myself even when it didn’t feel like training, like bodybuilding, like “real” lifting.
And to be very honest, I’m ashamed that these old voices still take hold of me sometimes. I’ve been working on this stuff–doing the work of belonging and creating more inclusive spaces for all people in lifting–for a long time. A huge part of that work has been managing my own unhelpful thoughts and narratives about who belongs. Giving myself true, unconditional permission to show up and do the work as I could, when I could.
But I suspect part of how I used to navigate that fear of not belonging was by working as hard as I could. I’d show up five, six days a week. I’d lift an hour or ninety minutes. I didn’t look the way people may have thought a bodybuilder should look, but I’d be damned if I wasn’t going to train like one. I was motivated, inspired by pushing my body. I enjoyed working hard. And this mindset didn’t require me to challenge my perfectionism. I leaned into it and used it to keep pushing through.
My why these days has to be different than those old motivations. Gyms and personal trainers and fitness influencers do a lot of big talk. The go big or go home, pain is weakness leaving the body, everybody is an athlete mentality can be fun and exciting. And, if we can’t live up to it, it can be disheartening, heartbreaking, and demotivating.
This is one reason why mindset work, which is so rarely discussed in the health and fitness world, is so essential. Without challenging these old thoughts, we fail to examine, and therefore give ourselves the opportunity to change, the underlying reasons why we struggle to maintain new habits.
And so I’m testing the boundaries of my perfectionism thinking these days. I’ve committed to doing something most days–some dumbbells, some bodyweight, a walk, shoveling snow–most days but not all days. Any amount of time counts. Any amount of weight and reps count. I’m working on giving myself credit for doing the work even when it feels like not enough. Yes, I’m getting in a little strength training, a little fitness stimulus. But what I’m really practicing and building up is the mental ability to keep going, to doing something when it doesn’t feel like enough.
Because I want to do this long-term, and to do that, paying attention to my why matters.
Progressive Strength 