Set the Bar Lower for Yourself
You're trying too hard to get it all done to your very high standards that you pride yourself on and your body-mind is screaming for relief. How can you tell this is what is happening? You feel anxious, have sleep issues, feel like there's never enough time, are tired but wired, and/or you are self medicating with caffeine or alcohol. These may be signs of chronic stress, a depleted vital reserve tank, and decreased ability to adapt with the stress we have been experiencing.
This does not mean that you are going to aim for mediocrity. What it does mean is that there is a spectrum in the levels of achievement. I promise you what you are expecting of yourself is 10x what the average person is expecting or is even capable of. On the spectrum of Good, Better, Best, this time of year, aim for Good (enough). Sometimes I just aim for Done. Done is Good. I've been giving this advice to my son, who is definitely exhibiting some perfectionist, and therefore procrastinator, tendencies when he's spinning his wheels on a homework assignment which may turn into tears. I tell him this is just a check-the-box exercise. His teach wants to know if he consumed the content and this is the response to demonstrate that you did. It does not need to be a masterpiece. It just needs to be done. Done will be great!
I've been living by the philosophy of setting the bar low for myself for over 15 years. I first remember thinking about this about 15 years ago when I had my first child. Some days, the best we could do was get ourselves fed and clean. I would hear stories from friends who were staying up past midnight (when they were tired and wanted to be sleeping) to get laundry done. I was appalled. And, I realized that we all set our own expectations of ourselves. I would NEVER sacrifice sleep for laundry. You can ask my husband, who has been doing the laundry for our household for most of our marriage.
I view it like this. When you set the bar lower, you are setting yourself up for success. You set the bar so low that you’d practically trip over it ( picture the limbo pole, where its so low that it’s laying on the ground and you just walk over it.)
But I know you. You’re obviously going to wildly exceed those low expectations, being the hardworking high-achievers that you are.
Those successes throughout the day, lead to happier feelings when we celebrate them. This is from Prof. BJ Fogg’s book, Tiny Habits and his Tiny Habit “recipe.” The key to why his method works is the emotional connection that we feel to accomplishing something we set out to do. Did you get that? The key to starting or stopping habits is not repetition or willpower, its picking something tiny, design the habit following Fogg's "recipe", which is; After I [insert anchor behavior], I will [insert new action you want to do], then celebrate! For example, one habit I've been working on is, after I go to the bathroom in the morning, I role out my yoga mat. My celebrations vary, but it may be a simple as saying to myself, "I did a good job!" Moving on. Do you see how celebrating even the tiniest successes could make your day lighter? And, dare I say more fun??
Figure out what those non-negotiables are for you in a day, schedule them, and protect that time. Even if its just 5 or 10 minutes at the start of your day. That's enough to get results. Notice how I didn't say, I do 30 minutes of yoga, then I meditate, and do my gratitude journaling to complete my perfect morning. I said I roll out my yoga mat and celebrate that. What actually happens is that I see what progresses from there within the time constraints I happen to have that day. After several years of doing this, I do end up doing at least a 10-minute yoga practice on YouTube. And I feel great about it. SUCCESS!
