“You should go to that yoga class babe.” my partnered muttered to me after I’d been writing hunched over my computer all day, all week really. “Yeah, but it’s been weeks, maybe even months. If I start again now I’ll have to practice every day and I just don’t have time.”

This is my shitty attitude towards everything I do and I’m calling myself out. I’m so all or nothing that it’s done me a great disservice many times and holds me back from true sustainability in all things. Hello, the reason I put growing my own business on hold for an entire year because I was too focused on building someone else’s. 

In the past, my yoga practice was a daily ritual. When I had a baby and started my own business it fell to the wayside. Of course, when I practice it feels amazingly nourishing for my mind, body and soul. But I have this stubborn idea that I must do it every day or I’m somehow a failure. 

I’m not sure where this idealistic attitude began, but it started young. I used to have dance class every day of the week growing up. Sometimes twice a day. It was this commitment to putting the time and practice in that made ballerinas out of tomboys and I was determined. When my flat feet and inflexibility became the real determining factor, I quit, completely.

When I started my food blog I would work on it every day. For awhile I was making, photographing, writing, publishing, and promoting posts every single day. And when I wasn’t doing that I was reading about how to get better. In a way, I acknowledge the value in full immersion free from distractions because it can propel the learning process profoundly. But I ended up getting pretty burned out, and once again, when I stopped to breathe, I stopped completely. 

In relationships, I’ve struggled with all or nothing to an extreme. By not wading into the shallow waters of lust and diving straight into the depths of (what I thought was) love. I’ve belly flopped into the middle of oceans. Oceans of chaos that one can’t easily escape because they’ve made the “commitment” to jump in the middle of the god damn ocean.

Healthy eating habits, the very premise of my entire ex-business, my lifelong study of nutrition and the foundation I’ve always offered myself through even the roughest hours, has fallen victim to my devotion or dust attitude as well. Lack of leniency and forgiveness when one stuffs their face with nachos and margaritas never resulted in a green juice the next morning, but a big old coffee half filled with Bailey’s because, well, what’s the point?

So the other night when my partner suggested I do something I love, something that gives me joy and releases my tension. I immediately didn’t want to commit. But over the years I’ve noticed this exceptionally deleterious habit of mine and I know it’s time to drop it. 

In the end, it’s about creating the space to allow. Our society teaches a whole lot of smothering. We disallow ourselves to dabble because of some shame of lacking commitment. Down with it. Embrace the random desires to do what you want without attachment, one day at a time. It’s consistency that makes an impact. Not constancy, not obsession, not some pathological rule book.

Do you get stuck in the same all-or-nothing pattern?

Tell me about it in the comments. Let’s bust through this illusion together!