I planned to start this blog out on a positive note, but I just hit what feels like a major setback, and I think it's important to acknowledge setbacks. Sometimes, in our ambitious planning phases and occasional delusions of grandeur, we like to ignore the possibility of any obstacles. The problem is, when we run headlong into those obstacles, not only is the damage usually worse for not looking first, but the shock and recovery can cost more time than the setback itself.
Life gets in the way.
A couple of weeks ago, after consulting with my ENT, I decided to go off dairy for 30 days. I'll write more about that later, but the short version is that I have a long history of ear/sinus problems, suspect I'm mildly allergic, and wanted to know if he thought the effort was worth it. He thought it might be and walked me through how to go about quitting cold-turkey (unfortunately, with food allergies, you really have to get off them entirely for a while; you can't just cut back).
I was doing pretty well – reading labels, avoiding things I love (like cheese), and even staying away from the trace amounts, which means most breads, anything with butter, etc. Unfortunately, about 2 weeks in, I really started feeling awful and found out I came down with strep throat. I was barely eating, and trying to stay off dairy while not having an appetite in general, being stressed and on antibiotics, just didn't make sense anymore.
It felt like a failure.
I had played by the rules, but quitting halfway through still felt like failure. For me, the resolve is the hard part. Once I had really committed to this, just stopping (and knowing I'll have to start again later) was a tough decision, but here's why I made it...
The goal was to feel better.
Sometimes, we get so caught up in the mechanics of success and the metrics we create that we forget the original point. In my case, the original point was to improve my health and feel better. I didn't feel better – I felt like boiled crap, to put it unpoetically. Worse yet, it was impossible to tell if the changes I was making were actually helping, and that made the entire exercise moot. Once I realized that, I felt a bit better about the decision. Forcing myself to carry on just to prove a point wasn't going to accomplish anything. This wasn't a failure of resolve; I just hit a bump in the road.
Resolve doesn't evaporate.
Finding real resolve to do something difficult is a struggle for most of us, and so we're naturally afraid to let go of it when it comes. Once you've reached that point, though, I don't think it's so easily lost. I decided to do this for good reasons – I'm 40 now, I have a daughter, I'm tired of sinus issues, and most of all, I'm tired of wondering whether making this change would help me or not. I want to find out. That hasn't changed – I've just lost a few weeks, and it happens. I think honesty and even a little tough love can be important on the path to productivity, but beating yourself up rarely accomplishes anything positive. Setbacks happen. Acknowledge them, even plan for them, but don't let a minor bump in the road turn into months or years of self-flagellation.
