Day 112 - Blowing It

Let me start off by wishing good luck to everyone out there running the 30k Around the Bay Road Race in the town of my birth, Hamilton, today. May your legs be strong and swift, your lungs be full of the clean (?!!) Hamilton air, and your mental game be at its best. I wish I were running with you, but I will get in my 22k today, thinking of you, and I will be cheering you on all the way.

What I want to talk about today - on glorious, sunny Day 112 - is the concept of "blowing it".

A friend of mine posted a status on Facebook the other day about eating healthily all day, only to "blow it" by gorging on some desserts in the evening.

A couple of my co-conspirators in this quest for a year of physical activity recently owned up to "blowing it" and dropping out of the challenge.

I often worry that I'm "blowing it" when I eat a treat, fail to complete a run, or plan my day poorly and end up doing only a very short burst of physical activity in the evening.

But what does "blowing it" really mean?

I think we often own up to blowing it when we worry that others will judge us on our failure to reach a goal. Maybe we feel guilty, and we need to confess. Maybe it makes us feel better about the potential for a better performance next time.

There have been times when I immediately reacted to congratulations on completing a race by saying, "Well, thanks, but I really blew it. I ended up having to walk in the middle" or "Yeah, thanks, but I blew it; I had a goal of finishing x minutes faster" or even, "Sure, but I blew it by not training well over the past few weeks". I think it helps alleviate guilt - I don't feel like I'm pulling the wool over anyone's eyes in terms of my performance - and it also helps me to feel better about what I could have accomplished had I not "blown it" - i.e., I could have finished the race without walking had I not gone out of gate too hard, or I could have finished under my goal time had I trained harder. I don't just do this with running; I've done it with synchro, with dietary changes, and even with tests and assignments at school.

But, despite my energetic use of the "blowing it" excuse, I'm not convinced that the idea of "blowing it" is a useful concept, for the following reasons:

1. When we "blow it", we make an all-or-nothing assessment of our ability to reach our goals. 

If we blow our diet on a big, yummy piece of chocolate cake, we might as well just eat the whole thing; the diet is wrecked anyway. If we blow our 10k run by having to stop and walk at 5k, we might as well just toss in the towel; we didn't manage to complete the run anyway.

If, instead, we see our minor slip-ups as an expected part of the process of getting fitter and healthier, losing weight, or reaching some other goal, we can appreciate that they are, indeed, minor. We can continue trying to reach our goals, because they are not all-or-nothing; they are, rather, ongoing struggles to create healthier lifestyles.

Last night, for example, I told myself I wouldn't drink when I went out with Danya and Emily; I just didn't feel I needed the empty calories. By the time I realised I had ordered a whiskey sour (reflex drink ordering at the bar!) it was too late to take it back. But I knew I didn't have to characterise my failure as jeopardising my whole effort to get fit, so I just drank my single drink and didn't order another.

2. When we "blow it", we pile up defeat.

My ability to stick to a goal is contingent on feeling like I can achieve minor successes regularly; I'm sure I'm not the only one. If I feel like I'm being constantly defeated, I just can't keep moving forward. The task becomes insurmountable, and there's no sense in beating my head against a brick wall, trying to achieve something that the world is telling me I'm not capable of.

If we characterise every slip-up as defeat, we can't continue motivating ourselves to achieve ambitious goals. "Blowing it", as a concept, is so sorely defeatist that it's hard to come back from; it's like piling up a mountain of defeats that we have to climb every time we make a fresh attempt at our goal. Isn't it much healthier - and more conducive to achieving big goals - if we let our slip-ups roll off our backs and focus on getting back into a productive mindset?

3. When we "blow it", we under-value of all our hard work.

If one little slip-up can undo a day's, week's, or year's worth of hard work, what is the sense of putting in that hard work, anyway? I refuse to believe that eating a dessert (or several!), having a drink, or having a bad run (or worse, no run at all!) can undo the rest of the day's, month's, or year's healthy eating and physical activity.

My hard work means something to me, and it's not something that missing a run can undo.

One of my goals for the upcoming week is to try to reframe my failures.

Can I make myself healthier, fitter, and - dare I say it? - happier by refusing to believe I've "blown it"?