With all this introspection I’ve done over the last couple years, one thing has become painfully obvious to me. I tend to want to measure success and define success in very concrete terms. How many times I’ve done x. The amount of weight I have lost. The number of projects I have completed. The number of awards I have won. But that really isn’t a good way to live your life is it?

I have now been religiously working out for more then two months. And I am depressed that I haven’t seen more results on the scale. And what is happening? I’m getting discouraged. I want to see results on the scale because in my mind all goodness in my life is and always has been determined by a number on a damn scale. No matter how I try to rationalize it in my head, I completely dismiss that I actually feel better emotionally. That my body feels stronger. That I am modeling excellent behavior for my children. That I have done wonderful things like reduced my resting heart rate by 10%, increased my cardiovascular health and endurance and improved my muscle tone. All those things fall by the way (weigh! Ha!) side because I am tunnel focused on some metric that has nothing to do with how it FEELS but rather with something I can analyze and quantify.

My husband I have been going round and round lately about his job. There are lots of opportunities that he is qualified for at a big employer here locally. It would be nice to have the benefits, not to mention he probably make more money. I’ve been very frustrated because he can’t seem to focus on actually going after a job there. We’ve had several emotional arguments about it… and I have been left feeling frustrated and truthfully somewhat betrayed by his lack of ambition.

Today when I was driving home in the car from the gym it really hit me though that again, I am probably focusing on the wrong thing. I mean… my husband drives a 96 Neon. That alone has saved us more then 5K a year in car payments. He’s home everyday by 5pm. He doesn’t have to work weekends. Ever. His work has flextime. It’s not stressful. He likes the people he works with. It ‘feels’ good to him, even though it not exactly upwardly mobile. He’s active in our children’s lives because of all of this freedom. Again… perhaps I am trying to measure success with the wrong quantifier?

Now I can rationalize that accomplishing things makes me feel good. But in truth, I am focusing on the achievement not the process. I have to find joy in the processes. I have to be more present and not mindless go into overdrive and simply accomplish for accomplishment sake. I need to make sure I feel the happiness that just doing can bring… not accomplishing. Like my scrapbooking. I swear I wax and wane on the scrapbooks because there never seems to be an end… there is no moment when I can point and say “oohhhh… I did that” because there is always more to do.

Ok… time to go do something. And try to feel joy while doing it instead of letting my mind soak up and bask in the glory of the accomplishment.

Related posts:

  1. What Joy Is
    2.   When I was struggling with infertility, one...
  2. Mindfully Working Out
    3.   Did I tell you guys I am working out? I...
  3. Awareness & My Discomfort Threshold
    4.   I ran. Yay me. I’m not feeling...