When To Say ‘Fuck You’ To Your Goals.

As stated in this post, I had the ‘brilliant’ idea to eat raw food until dinner for four days out of seven a week. It’s not necessarily a bad goal, it’s just that I noticed it didn’t work for me at all. I’ve tried my hand at it for a day and it made me horribly depressed. And when something depresses me, I’m pretty sure I shouldn’t be doing it.

It’s not that raw food depresses me. Raw food is awesome. Salads, juices, weird funny looking crackers and raw cacao desserts: Be still my heart. But, me telling myself I can’t eat something? That is a strategy I’ve used well in my teenage years and believe you me, that did not work out very well. We should not do it again. Because…it’s depressing.

It was the restrictive and limiting idea of this goal that made me cranky. It made me unhappy to know I would have to have 4 days out of 7 when I wanted to have a sandwich or a nice soup for lunch, I wouldn’t be able to. 4 days out of 7 to opt out of an offered brownie? Boo! I don’t want to do that!

I didn’t make me happy to know that I’d have to skip on a lot of the things I like every once in a while, just because it’d be my Raw-Until-Dinner day. It felt wrong. It didn’t make me happy. And things that don’t make me happy? I do as little of those as possible.

I eat what I want and what I’m in the mood for. I bet there will be plenty of days where I’ll eat raw food all day, just because I feel like it and because it makes me happy. But it’s not going to be obligatory or something to check off my list. I’m going to do it because I want to.

There’s nothing wrong with a little Spartan Warriorism in your goal setting. But it should always be the type of Spartan Warriorism that makes you want to pound your chest and scream all proudly, that makes you feel all tingly and excited of ‘what a kick-ass, exciting goal’.

It should not be the type where you feel like you have to stand in row and feel unhappy while fighting the other bare-chested Spartans while you’d much rather be out painting the abs on Gerard Butler. Goals don’t make you feel depressed, that don’t excite you and make you curious and happy? Those are the wrong goals.

So I impolitely told this goal to go fuck itself. I made a wholegrain bagel with avocado, had a latte and it was AWESOME. I have felt great ever since.

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11 comments

  1. You know, I don’t think I ever commented on your blog (or maybe once, a long time ago), but I really enjoy reading your advice. You say things I sometimes already know, but it’s a good reminder and you’re just really funny.
    So I guess I just want to say thanks 🙂 For writing this blog and cheering me up (and on). So.. um.. yeah. *awkward silence* bye!

    1. Thanks, Nicole! I know your blog too, and I’m glad you like my advice & the way I put it. You’re very welcome! Bye! <3

  2. Your writing style is awesome and so is this article. Reminded me of how I used to permit myself to eat three meals a day with some healthy snacks (fruits) in between. Didn’t work out. In the end you’re even more craving for bad food. And just like you say, some days you’re just in the mood for healthy food.

    1. Thank you so much! It’s just a bad idea to restrict, in my opinion, you’ve gotta be able to ‘feel’ and do what ‘feels right’. Corny, but true.

  3. I wholeheartedly agree. I don’t like anything restrictive. I want things. I want it all. And I want good things too, but if I can’t have something, oh boy. That’s why I’m a big fan of crowding out, including more of what I do want and in the process doing less and less of what I don’t want. I’ve tried to push that a little further several times, with different things, but it pushed back. So I wondered: why bother? Why does it have to be all or none? Why is a good-bad ratio of 100 to 0 so much better than a ratio of 90 to 10? Or even 99 to 1? 100% of the good stuff is nice, but I find I’m actually better if I allow in some ‘bad’ as well.

    And this is a rant. I actually wanted to leave a comment simply to say that you had me at Gerard Butler.

  4. This is amazing! I really really really really like this post, cause it’s something that I need to remember. If doing certain thing is not making me happy, I should stop doing them.