Being Too Rigid Breaks
Have you ever tried to bend something that was so stiff when you bent it too far, it broke? Are you someone that has so many rules that if one rule isn’t followed, then everything else crumbles?
That definitely was me. I used to have the mindset that if I didn’t work out in the morning, then I wouldn’t work out for that entire day leading me to eating things that didn’t serve me and that didn’t make me feel well. Can you relate? That snowball effect would happen just about anytime I didn’t work out in the morning. Breaking it down – it wasn’t the actual not working out that resulted in the poor eating habits. I had developed a mindset that if I didn’t work out all bets were off. Zero flexibility.
Being too rigid can create poor habits that don’t serve us. Learning to practice flexibility allows us to still accomplish our goals and for those times we just can’t get to something on our to-do list, to not throw in the towel (I will be writing a blog post on practicing grace in the coming weeks which comes in handy when we are strengthening our flexibility muscle).
If you find yourself living in an all or nothing, rigid mentality, here are some tips to building in flexibility:
1. Build self-awareness (I speak often about this one). Knowing our habits and routines can help us identify where we may be too rigid and where we can build in flexibility. If we aren’t aware of our actions, then we can’t change them.
2. Get uncomfortable. In my example where I would throw it all out the window if I didn’t work out in the morning, I had trained my thoughts to give up if something didn’t go as planned. I quickly learned that I had to retrain my thoughts to be flexible. As I started to work on developing a flexible mindset, I had to get uncomfortable because it was something I wasn’t used to. Challenge your status quo. Get uncomfortable. Working through being uncomfortable is not impossible – it just takes a commitment to yourself to want more for your life.
3. Do something different. I heard this phrase from Amy Porterfield and wrote it out on a piece of paper so I can see it every day. Intentionally doing something different helps train our brain to get out of our current situation and open our mind. When we are too rigid, we tend to do the same thing day in/day out and not think outside of the box. Trying new things can create expansion and in turn flexibility to our thinking. Doing something different doesn’t need to be some crazy, wild event. It could be as simple as going for a walk in the morning when you would normally sleep in, trying a different food, journaling when you have never journaled before - you name it.
What are you going to do different today?
