Atrytone Attempts to Overcome Maladaptive Perfectionism

[NeuroPunkNonsense]

Last challenge taught me that I need to be more flexible with my goals and with myself. Between two jobs, with changing hours and responsibilities, and the mental illness double whammy of depression and anxiety it’s not always possible for me to stick to a rigid challenge structure. However, I think it’s very important to keep striving for small improvements especially when the large ones seem out of reach. After all - anything worth doing well is worth doing poorly.

 

As such I’ve changed up this week's challenge. For each of my three goals (workout, nutrition, mindset) I have to earn a set amount of points. These points can be earned a number of ways with no cap on how many I can earn a day. This means I could spread them out across the week (optimal) or jam them all into one or two days (suboptimal but allowable). This way I (theoretically) won’t be beating myself up for not strictly adhering to my challenge schedule.

 

The number of points I need for each goal, and the ways to earn the points, are listed below. All activities are worth 1 point unless otherwise specified.

 

Workout Goal - 7pts/week

• Go for a walk (can be to end of driveway)
• Do a dynamic warm up
• Work on squat progressions
• Spend an hour at the gym (2pts)

 

Nutrition Goal - 7pts/week

• No snacking after 7 pm
• Bring lunch to work
• Cook dinner (rather than getting takeout)
• Successful use of Distraction Tea

 

Mindset Goal - 14pts/week

• Daily positive
• Hygiene (ie. brushing/flossing, shower, wash face and moisturize, at-home pedicure)
• 15+ minute meditation
• Domestic Rangering (ie. take out trash/recycling/compost, clean up cans/bottles, sweep, gardening, dishes, cleaning litter box, doing/folding/putting away laundry, cleaning bathroom/kitchen/living area/sleeping area/entrance way, organizing bookshelf)
• Reading

 

I will score myself weekly as follows:

• <50% - Poor 
• 50% - Okay
• 51-75% - Good
• 76-100% - Great
• >100% - Fantastic

[Alanna]

I like the flexible approach -following! It's especially nice to have alternatives for exercise - sometimes we don't have the time, energy, or space to do a planned workout, but something is always better than nothing. 

[NeuroPunkNonsense]

31 minutes ago, Alanna said:

I like the flexible approach -following! It's especially nice to have alternatives for exercise - sometimes we don't have the time, energy, or space to do a planned workout, but something is always better than nothing. 

 

Thank you. Options are nice especially because perfectionism lends itself so well to procrastination. Also more options means, hopefully, fewer excuses.

[Tanktimus the Encourager]

One of the things I have found helpful in fighting perfectionism is to grade myself on starting things, rather than finishing. Knowing I can "succeed" just by starting lets me focus on starting, rather than the whole task, and makes it easier to get stuff done.

[Loveable_Bouncer]

4 hours ago, Tanktimus the Encourager said:

One of the things I have found helpful in fighting perfectionism is to grade myself on starting things, rather than finishing. Knowing I can "succeed" just by starting lets me focus on starting, rather than the whole task, and makes it easier to get stuff done.

Huh never thought or accepted that, having that in my own challenge!

 

7 hours ago, Atrytone said:

Domestic Rangering (ie.

Now that's a name that's having me look at my "chores for myself" make sense. 

[NeuroPunkNonsense]

6 hours ago, Tanktimus the Encourager said:

One of the things I have found helpful in fighting perfectionism is to grade myself on starting things, rather than finishing. Knowing I can "succeed" just by starting lets me focus on starting, rather than the whole task, and makes it easier to get stuff done.

 

Very true. Thank you for this reminder.

 

2 hours ago, Fairly_Bouncer said:

Now that's a name that's having me look at my "chores for myself" make sense. 

 

Saw it here on the forums ages ago and it always struck a chord.  

[deftona]

Following! 

[Cheetah]

Hello.  🙂

[NeuroPunkNonsense]

19 hours ago, deftona said:

Following! 

 

8 hours ago, Cheetah said:

Hello.  🙂

 

Hello! Good to see you both. 

[NeuroPunkNonsense]

Managed to do some reading last night and some cleaning up today (bag of garbage, bag of food waste, and 3 trips to the recycling bin).

[Cheetah]

16 hours ago, Atrytone said:

cleaning up

 

When I was young, I didn't like cleaning up, and avoided it at all costs.  Now I love cleaning up, and it bothers me that my children aren't as enthusiastic about it as I am.  The wheel keeps turning.

[NeuroPunkNonsense]

On 5/5/2021 at 12:20 PM, Cheetah said:

When I was young, I didn't like cleaning up, and avoided it at all costs.  Now I love cleaning up, and it bothers me that my children aren't as enthusiastic about it as I am.  The wheel keeps turning.

 

The issue is I like a clean space. When I'm in a state of good mental health it's easy to maintain. However, it's been more than a year since I'd categorize myself as in 'good mental health' and as a result a lot of trash and dirt etc. has built up. Which worsens my mental health. It's a cycle with no winners.

[NeuroPunkNonsense]

Haven't been keeping track as well as I could. As of today my points are probably as follow.

 

Workout Goal: 2 points

 

Nutrition Goal: 3 points

 

Mindset Goal: 6 points

[Alanna]

How did the rest of Week 1 go?  

[NeuroPunkNonsense]

On 5/18/2021 at 9:05 AM, Alanna said:

How did the rest of Week 1 go?  

 

It and week two didn't. More to follow.

[NeuroPunkNonsense]

Woof. Rough start this challenge. Not much has happened in the past two weeks aside from work stress. In an attempt to take better care of myself I have given my two weeks notice at my cooking job. Been having nothing but problems at it and decided the my mental health is worth more than $15/hour.

 

Now. Challenge stuff. I realized I haven't been invested because I've been viewing my goals as chores. Things I have to do but have no real motivation to complete. So I'm going to rewind a little and write down a list of reasons why each of them matter to me. Hopefully that'll give me the boost I need to tackle them for the last half of the challenge.

[NeuroPunkNonsense]

Why Do The Things?

Workout

1. Be strong
   • easier to do physical things (ie. less trips when bringing groceries in)
   • help friends and family (ie. moving furniture, opening jars, etc.)
2. Slim down
   • less trouble breathing
   • feel better about my body
3. Feel better
   • better sleep
   • improved mental health

Nutrition 

1. Slim down
   • less trouble breathing
   • feel better about my body
2. Develop a healthy relationship with food
   • no binging or bored/sad/lonely eating
   • eat things that make me feel good (ie. freggies)
3. Know what I'm putting in my body
   • increase homemade meals
   • decrease fast and junk food

Mindset

1. Feel better
   • better sleep
   • improved mental health
2. Reclaim hobbies
   • reading
   • fibre arts
   • cooking

[NeuroPunkNonsense]

Today's positive is getting back on track.

[NeuroPunkNonsense]

So yesterday I packed up 3 large garbage bags and took them all to the dump. Gunna give myself 4 points for that. I also tackled my mountain of dishes. Didn't get them all done but did a good chunk. I'll allocate 2 points for that. I also showered this morning so 1 point for that. Adding on yesterday's positive that brings my mindset goal up to 8. 

 

I'm bringing a lunch with me to work today so that's 1 point in the nutrition column.

 

Workout goal to follow. I have plans to work on my squat progressions after work.

[Cheetah]

On 5/26/2021 at 3:02 PM, Atrytone said:

Today's positive is getting back on track.

 

Great work!  Keep it up!

[NeuroPunkNonsense]

I have brought lunch to work every day this week so that's 3 points total in the nutrition category.

 

Hammered out a squat progression. Wasn't sure where I was at so I started with deep squats and achieved the 3 sets of 8 benchmark to move on so next it'll be Bulgarian split squats. 1 point for my workout goal.

[NeuroPunkNonsense]

So...some mental health stuff in the spoiler.

 

Spoiler

FINALLY met with a psychiatrist. She's pretty positive I have ADHD and just missed getting diagnosed because I was smart and non-disruptive (it appears to be inattentive type?). Also sounds like my weight gain was most likely a side effect of one or both of the antidepressants my GP had prescribed me to deal with what appeared to be major depression with accompanying suicidal ideation. I'm feeling a lot of things right now, some of them very ugly. I'll try to finish out this challenge but I'm not sure if I'm going to have the brainspace to do so.

 

[Alanna]

On 5/26/2021 at 7:47 PM, Atrytone said:

Woof. Rough start this challenge. Not much has happened in the past two weeks aside from work stress. In an attempt to take better care of myself I have given my two weeks notice at my cooking job. Been having nothing but problems at it and decided the my mental health is worth more than $15/hour.

 

Now. Challenge stuff. I realized I haven't been invested because I've been viewing my goals as chores. Things I have to do but have no real motivation to complete. So I'm going to rewind a little and write down a list of reasons why each of them matter to me. Hopefully that'll give me the boost I need to tackle them for the last half of the challenge.

 

Sorry for disappearing before I had a chance to respond. I hope the work change relieves some of your stress - your weekends seemed very taxing on top of your already taxing job.

 

On 6/2/2021 at 5:10 AM, Atrytone said:

So...some mental health stuff in the spoiler.

 

  Hide contents

FINALLY met with a psychiatrist. She's pretty positive I have ADHD and just missed getting diagnosed because I was smart and non-disruptive (it appears to be inattentive type?). Also sounds like my weight gain was most likely a side effect of one or both of the antidepressants my GP had prescribed me to deal with what appeared to be major depression with accompanying suicidal ideation. I'm feeling a lot of things right now, some of them very ugly. I'll try to finish out this challenge but I'm not sure if I'm going to have the brainspace to do so.

 

 

That is incredibly frustrating that you haven't been getting support due to a misdiagnosis - I hope figuring out some of the underlying sources for the challenges you've had helps with your health and goals. That definitely takes priority right now over your original goals.