[just enough]

Something struck me last week. Right in the middle of a workout, this thought just walloped me upside the head.

It was Saturday afternoon and I was doing an hour long workout DVD. After about 45 minutes, the instructor made a comment about how we probably hated him right about now and that he was totally okay with that.

I don't hate you, I thought. I hate that voice in my head telling me that 80% is good enough.

The more I thought about it, the more I realized that I've spent the majority of my adult life shrugging my shoulders and saying, "eh, that's good enough." Remember the movie Babe? Remember the part where the farmer looks at Babe and says "that'll do pig, that'll do"? I say that to myself regularly. I give only 80% effort and quit about 80% of the way through.

I noticed it first in my exercise. For years I was perfectly content to quit doing whatever exercise I was doing 5 seconds too soon. The underlying logic was simple: 55 seconds out of 60 was better than 0.

To an extent that logic is perfectly sound. But if I could justify 55 I could justify 50, 45, or 40. Eventually I could justify just not doing it at all. After all I walked home from work today. Isn't that enough?

No. It's not.

This attitude extended past my workouts and permeated every aspect of my life. I never read the last few pages of books. I never gave work memos a final proof read before sending them off. I never finished all the laundry.

Of course, there were times when these nevers were perfectly appropriate. Sometimes I ran out of quarters while the bank was closed; my laundry would have to wait until I could get more quarters. Sometimes there just wasn't enough time to give that work memo a final proofread because my boss decided he wanted it earlier than he'd initially told me.

There were extra cookies eaten with the knowledge that I'd had a healthy lunch and that I'd run later after work (hadn't I earned that cookie?). Soon there were unhealthy meals eaten with the knowledge that I'd make up for it at the next meal by eating super healthy and working out. Shortly after that there weren't meal plans and my shopping cart was filled with whatever caught my fancy that day. And shortly after that I was several pounds heavier than I had been a few weeks before.

At the end of the day I have still lost weight. I could look at the fact that I've lost weight and say "I'm doing good enough."

But deep in my heart I know that's not true. I'm not doing good enough. I'm cheating. I'm cheating myself. I'm cheating my blog readers. I'm cheating my family (current & future). I'm cheating my friends. I'm cheating my career.

All this cheating has been sitting like a pile of rocks in the pit of my stomach. Each cheat just adds another pebble to the pile. They're tiny, minuscule little pebbles but boy do they add up.

So I made a decision: no more adding pebbles to the pile. From this day forward, good enough is not, well, good enough. I think Jennifer Nettles said it best in Sugarland's Settlin' so I'll let her take it from here:

"I ain't settlin' for just gettin' by

I've had enough so so for the rest of my life

Tired of shooting too low so raise the bar high

Cause just enough ain't enough this time

I ain't settlin' for anything less than everything."

Like Ms. Nettles I'm raising the bar for myself. Good enough won't work anymore. I'll be blogging here. I'll be focusing on this weight loss. No more hiding behind excuses of doing good enough (if anyone fell for that excuse it was me).

It's time to get what I deserve out of life, including a healthy body and mind.