It's the final day of Kenzai Shift! Thank you for hanging in with us and making your way through the daily lessons. Hopefully along the way you've had a few lightbulb moments and are seeing more clearly.
Today's final myth is one that trips up a lot of people who have committed to making better choices and turning their fitness around. It's a tough one because the root of the myth comes from a good and pure place.
IF YOU CAN'T DO IT PERFECTLY, YOU SHOULDN'T DO IT AT ALL.
SUCCESS IS A STORY OF PROGRESS, NOT PERFECTION.
It's a wonderful feeling to have a perfect day of wellness. When you make good food choices, get some cardio in, and do your workout without any missteps you go to sleep with a lot of satisfaction.
A perfect week of fitness is even more satisfying. You can feel the difference in your bones, you have more energy, sharper thinking, and are filled with confidence.
A perfect month feels so unbelievably good that words can't describe it! You have pep in your step and are filled with what can only be described as vitality, the vital life force of your body at its best.
But then something happens. You have a deadline at work that keeps you chained to the desk. You have a life event which throws you off your normal schedule. Often there's no clear reason at all, you just have an off day where it all falls apart.
When a perfect streak is broken, it takes on a much bigger meaning than it actually deserves. Let's say you've gotten your food and exercise right every day in the week, but on Friday night you get busy, miss your exercise, and have a heavy dinner and dessert. On Saturday morning you wake up and feel like your motivation has taken a major hit. You might find yourself having thoughts like "I was doing so well and I messed it all up yesterday. I'll have to start all over now. Why not just take it easy this weekend and start again on Monday?"
This is the wrong way to look at things! There's no panel of judges giving you bad marks for ending a good streak of wellness. There's just you and your lifelong effort of keeping your body trim, strong, and functional for as long as you can. From that perspective, it doesn't matter that you messed up on Friday. What matters is that during the week you got it right 90% of the time. 90% isn't 100%, but it's 90% better than doing nothing at all. It's a great place to be. What you don't want to do is let the existence of that missing 10% sap your motivation and send you back towards doing nothing at all.
Perfectionism is impressive while it lasts, but once the cracks start to show it quickly proves to be a fragile state of being. The pursuit of perfection is shiny but brittle. As soon as it's cracked just a little it tends to shatter.
The pursuit of progress is less flashy, but much more durable. Getting things 50%, 70% or 90% right consistently will put you far ahead of the person who's only satisfied with all or nothing.
Resist the mind's attraction to streaks. When things go off the rails, dust yourself off and get back to work the next day without looking back. Also don't try to make up for mistakes by working extra hard or eating less. That only confuses the body more. Mild consistency will always beat fierce perfectionism! Would you sell a stock the first time it went down instead of up? That would be a strange investment strategy destined to fail.
140 years of the US stock market activity shows progress isn't a smooth line.
When you invest in your health, give yourself the same leeway. There will be dips, plateaus, and streaks both good and bad. When you feel overwhelmed, remember the lessons that we started this whole program with:
YOU are the one in charge of your body. And your wellness is nothing more than the aggregate of the food, exercise, and sleep choices you've been making recently. Make good choices, and good things will happen. Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good!
This officially concludes your Kenzai Shift program!
