Putting On My Big Boy Pants

And how being obsessed with achieving is self-sabotaging

It's time I put my "big boy pants" on and finally stop worrying about what other people think.

I’ve written about this a lot as a way of getting over it.

But the urge to please others and not look silly is strong, and I’ve realised it’s still holding me back from talking about what I’m trying to do with Alfred.

I’m proud of what it stands for and know I can help people struggling with low energy because I’ve been there many times before, and I’ve got no problems writing about it.

But when it comes to talking to someone about it, I choke up and downplay the significance of what I’m trying to do because I worry they’ll think I’m arrogant or delusional.

And maybe I am?

I’d like to think I’m not, and I also worry I'll offend people who've had issues with calories in the past, because my mission isn’t to make people feel worse.

But I believe tracking what you eat can be great if you do it to manage how you feel.

Not how much you weigh.

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Another realisation I had last week was that I’m too obsessed with “achieving” and always feel the need to be productive.

Which is a problem because it means I’ll often start doing something without giving it proper thought, and I end up wasting time and energy.

And I realised this while reading about executive coaches, and how one said she spends most of her time helping her clients with self-sabotaging behaviours, and labelled 3 types of self-saboteurs of which the following is me:

The hyper-achiever is highly focused on external success and drives us to depend on constant performance and achievement for self-respect and self-validation.

A lot of these behaviours are very old and are survival mechanisms that we developed pre-adolescence as we learned to navigate and problem-solve our way through the world and the unique circumstances we found ourselves in. By understanding the root cause of some of the unhelpful symptomatic behaviours that we exhibit, we can then use tactical approaches to managing them so that they don’t derail us in our present day.

I know the root cause of this stems from my childhood. But I won’t write about it publicly out of respect for others.

But I will write about how I deal with this unhelpful behaviour and how I’m managing it so I can balance a meaningful career with my health and family.

So anyway, it’s time to put my big boy pants on and be proud of what I'm trying to do… without doing too much.

A tricky balance to find.

Any tips?