It’s taken me a long time and a lot of therapy to realize that I don’t get a gold star for reaching the ideal, instead I often experience lots of anxiety.
Walking is a thing I do daily, a “must” if you will. If I don’t get a daily walk in, it’s likely I will feel groggy, crunchy, and irritable the rest of the day. In addition to it being excellent for my physical well-being, I find it a time where my mind gets to wander, I can tease out thoughts and ideas that float around the back of my mind.
Today’s walk (today as in, the day I started penning this post) had me thinking about consistency. The walk was different. Instead of my normal 12pm meander along the river on campus, it was a 2pm walk in my neighborhood with my dog. It was a work day, but I was working from home because B is traveling for work, and it’s just a touch easier to be at home during the day. My meeting schedule had me off cycle.
In other words, it wasn’t exactly what you could define as “consistent” with what I usually do. I got my habits taken care of in piecemeal fashion, the best I could that day.
It’s no secret that I have strong opinions on influencers, particularly in the health and motherhood realms. Let’s focus in on the health and wellness realm today, shall we? One of the things almost every single one of them preaches is that you MUST stay consistent to see the results you want. Weight loss, better sleep, nutrition, meditation, you name it there is an influencer who will post their daily routine and harp on how important it is to STICK TO THEM.
I don’t disagree, I love a good routine, and the content they put out around daily routines is dreamy. But when I see those posts I find myself thinking one of three things:
Liar liar pants on fire (I am a complete skeptic of everything I consume, I would never join your cult.)
You clearly don’t have children (this is reserved for those who I know do not have children.)
Your life seems really cushy to me, and I love that for you, but I just don’t have that luxury at this moment in time.
As I know I’ve said before, I would love to have a perfectly executed daily routine that never gets interrupted. I would also love for someone to pay for daycare for me. These things are unlikely, though if you’re feeling generous please hit me up.
Instead what I have is a basic framework of what I want my day to look like, what I hope happens in terms of exercise, meditation, skincare, meals, alone time, family time, work, etc. Sometimes this framework is executed flawlessly and sometimes I have to decide what is top priority and what can be altered or tossed altogether. Some examples: a sick baby in the middle of the night often leads to the following - can I substitute a morning run by adding some length to my midday walk? My husband traveling for work a lot lately leads to - do I need to say “fuck it” to the meal I planned and order something in? Even my nighttime ritual isn’t always met, sometimes I am far too exhausted to even pick up my book.
At this stage of my life, consistency is a luxury, almost like the ability to get a massage. Between being a mom of two toddlers, working full time, and managing all the other aspects of my life, there’s lots of room for chaos and unpredictability. Things pop up all the time that I have no control over but need to be addressed. Schedules and priorities must shift to accommodate things like the demand of a sick child who needs to be picked up from daycare.
I think what the rub really is with those consistent influencer routines is that I am type A and extremely hard on myself. I know what I WANT my days to look like, and when it doesn’t always happen that way, I see it as a failure on my part because I have been under the illusion for so long that I have more control over my life than I really do.
It’s taken me a long time and a lot of therapy to realize that I don’t get a gold star for reaching the ideal, instead I often experience lots of anxiety. My gut reaction to seeing other’s routines online is to see it as a way that I don’t measure up, I’m not “good enough.” These thoughts have sucked the joy out of a lot of things at times, these thoughts have ruined my patience. These thoughts have made me focus on things that don’t matter so much when it all comes down to it.
Lately, I find that I react less with self doubt and more with the aforementioned three thoughts. Maybe it’s because I am learning that I am the one who sets the rules on what’s good enough in certain aspects of my life. I’m also learning that there’s a lot of beauty in fluidity. Is life really meant to be lived by rigid rules and habits? At the end of our days, is my worth really measured by the ability to stick to a firm schedule? I’d like to think not.
My girls are my greatest examples of this. Each day is something new. New games, new words, new interests, new questions. There is beauty and joy in their newness. Things shift for the better, sometimes without us even noticing, and nothing bad happens. I don’t get a gold star, but I do get tons of love.
All of this to say, perhaps the consistency should be in our values, in what makes us really tick. I value movement, connection, quiet time, delicious meals, reading my babies bedtime stories. Our values should be the real framework for our days instead of our habits. Anything else is a luxury to be enjoyed.