No. 67: Easy Come, Easy Go | Goal Setting for the Begrudging, the Hesitant, and the Terrified.

Sharing some of my goals for the years and why goal setting isn't the goal

“You’re so lucky you’re naturally disciplined”
“You’re the most disciplined person I know”
“I feel like I could do anything if I had literally half of your discipline”

For all of my adult life, these are the comments I’ve received over and over from family, friends and strangers on the internet. While there are times I’ve found it flattering or endearing, I’ve noticed them sitting in my stomach lately. Twisting, turning, churning.

Growing up, I was naturally lazy. I’m talkin’ shamefully lazy. Despite my desperate desire to be a slug and lean into that lazy pull, my parents had high expectations and required a whole lot of us. When my dad retired from the NFL and had the same amount of energy and nowhere in the home to direct it, my laziness was threatened at new heights. I’d regularly go downstairs for breakfast to find a whiteboard blocking my path. It’d read:

DO NOT EAT BREAKFAST UNTIL YOU HAVE:

Brushed your teeth
Washed your face
Cleaned your room spotless
Cleaned your bathroom spotless
Cleaned your closet spotless
Put all laundry away
Vacuumed your floors

And suddenly, my sloth dreams of sitting at the countertop with an overflowing bowl of cereal while doing the maze on the back of the Honey Nut Cheerios box seemed a lifetime away. Try as I might to be lazy, it simply wasn’t allowed¹. I was also an athlete which meant that my time wasn’t my own in my home or outside of it. Every time I stepped onto the court or the track I was convinced I was just missing the gene that made everyone else excited to do the work. Suicides? 200s? Deadlifts, mile runs for warm ups, squats…day after day and year after year it never stopped being daunting.

It took me moving into my own space for the first time to have the epiphany that my motivation was my own choice. I was an eighteen year old in an apartment in the suburbs in Chicago. I had to be at the train station by 6:30 am to make it to the city for my 8am class. I had schoolwork to complete, a breakup to heal from, a space to keep clean, a body to restore and nourish and a walk with the Lord to make my own. I knew there was no way any of these things would just happen without diligent effort on my part and out of sheer terror that I’d lean into my laziness for all eternity, I removed it as an option. I was motivated to transform into a new person.

I need to remind you that at this time, 2008, there wasn’t even ten percent of the discipline and goal setting content available. I’m being honest, I wasn’t aware of any whatsoever. There was no manifesting, there was no visualization, I didn’t know anything about the SMART goal-setting method and I certainly didn’t have a legion of coaches with their e-books and courses on the topic. I can’t even tell you exactly how I made the pivot. I just…decided.

Suddenly, I was restricting anything and everything just to prove to myself I could do it. Three months without flour, a month without sugar, not breaking a months-long running streak. I met O, transferred to college in San Francisco to play volleyball as a student athlete and the discipline increased even more balancing work and school and training and tournaments and a long distance relationship. We got married when I turned 21 and somehow, the discipline only grew along with my responsibilities.

Seven years ago, I was diagnosed with Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis Disease. After devouring what felt like every single piece of research on the autoimmune disease, I learned the “word of the year” for my life going forward was going to be “restriction.” My diet became extremely restricted, the products I could use in my home and on my body became restricted and just about everything I came in contact with had to change. I was motivated, of course, because this diagnosis came as a result of two years of the worst pain and lethargy I’d experienced in my life and ultimately, a devastating miscarriage.

Motivation led to me doing the intense work each day to remove stress, permanently remove toxins and gluten and soy and dairy and refined sugar…and, and, and. People marveled at my discipline more than ever and I tried to explain that if your options were restriction or heart failure, kidney failure, infertility, cognitive issues and severe anxiety and depression, the option becomes simple.

You don’t have a choice.