by Michael Plank
Have you ever been so busy that you skipped a shower you probably should have taken? So tired that you missed flossing or brushing your teeth? So distracted that you forgot deodorant? Traveling some place where washing your hands with soap wasn’t an option?
That probably catapulted you into a shame spiral, right?
You beat yourself up for failing again. You skipped again. You just need to get your shit together. You should shower. You should moisturize. You should floss every day. What kind of person misses those things? Why can’t you even get the simplest things right? Who will even love you when you’re smelly and toothless and gross?
And then you just quit.
And you never showered/flossed/brushed/deodorized/used soap again.
Right?
Oh wait.
Probably not.
Because that would be insane.
Because you know that daily hygiene is important. And it’s so important that if you miss a day, you can’t just quit. So I’d bet a lot of money that you don’t feel ashamed and drop the habit forever, you just shrug it off and get back to it the next day.
But for some reason, we treat exercise and nutrition like they’re different. If hygiene is a set of practices that you implement to maintain your health and prevent any new diseases, then surely exercise and nutrition fall under that umbrella. But when we miss a day at the gym because we weren’t feeling it, or we ate an entire pint of ice cream because it was a hard day at work, we feel like we’re terrible people; like we can’t do anything right; like we’ll be fat and ugly and alone and no one will love us; and we get so ashamed and so discouraged that eventually we just quit.
When the secret to success really is to treat it like all your other hygiene practices.
I usually work out on Wednesday afternoons. But we just moved houses two days ago. There’s a meet and greet at the Kindergarten center today before I have to coach, and there are last minute things to get done before the kids start school tomorrow. So my normal workout is not going to happen today. Who cares? I’m going to work out tomorrow morning and move on with my life.
Being PERFECT with your exercise or your nutrition is overrated and unrealistic. All that no-excuses, never-miss-a-day business is nonsense.
Shake it off. Get back to it. You’re doing great.