Trying too hard

I want to talk about trying too hard, whatever that means to you. You might be a new mother trying hard to be all things; mother, wife, friend, daughter. You might be a working mother trying too hard to please your boss and your children. You might be the new girl or boy at work trying too hard to fit in. You might be the person on Twitter who doesn't find Twitter comes naturally but desperately tries to be part of it. You might be trying too hard to force an idea to come before it's ready. You might even be trying too hard to make a person like you, either as a friend or otherwise. Or trying too hard to work out what your horoscopes mean when they say "an old fling might turn up." FYI - they mean STOP READING THEM.

You might be none of those things. 

But whatever it is that you are trying too hard to do. Stop it. Just stop. 

The definition of the very word itself comes loaded with a negative. Of course to try and achieve something is a good thing, right? Well lets look at it another way: to be tried either legally or in the sense of finding an effort trying, is to be put upon. So therefore when we try to do something are we putting upon ourselves an expectation or perimeter or weight? Because it seems to me that whenever I try to do anything I fail. But when I simply do something I always, always succeed.

If I write some words of the novel I am trying to draw out of myself, I have written some words. Words that will change a million times over but words that create the base for a story that will be drawn from them. But if I try and write a novel then the weight of the entire undertaking is too heavy to carry and I end up useless at my laptop. If I tweet what I want to tweet and not try to tweet things that other people might find entertaining then I have entertained myself and expressed myself. If I like myself instead of trying to make others like me then I have made a very important friend for life rather than a friend who had to be convinced I was likeable. And if I assert my ideas at work rather than try to guess what my client wants me to produce, I will be far more likely to have success. 

Recently I quit sugar, genuinely. I know! I did what the blog title said I was doing. What was the difference this time as to the last time? I simply did it. I didn't try to do it. I just did it. And the difference between the words "try to do it" and "do it" is success. It was helped, I will grant you, by the fact that I had secured a commission on the basis that I would quit sugar for a month. So I have quit sugar for a month. Except, I am currently in week six and still no sugar.  

Earlier this year I quit alcohol. Again, I didn't try to, I did it. I decided that I wanted to and I told everyone that I had quit. Not that I was trying to quit. By being firm with this description, everyone, including myself, took me seriously. No one tried to coerce me to drink. But whenever I have "tried to do dry January" I have failed by week two. I didn't say I was quitting forever but that I was quitting for now and that I wanted to get a better relationship with alcohol. So too sugar. I have also been careful to do one thing at a time. I would like to do lots of things but one thing at a time. Do one thing properly before tackling another. 

But lately I have noticed the try word creep into my vocabulary. It started when I noticed that someone I really admire on Twitter, someone I met at a blogging course, didn't reply to two of my tweets and then unfollowed me. I was so hurt. This woman writes about feeling unworthy and "lesser" than and with the unfollow button she made me feel less than. What had I done wrong? Had I offended her? Was I simply awful? Do I present myself badly online? And so I stopped tweeting. I stopped looking at Twitter. And every time I dipped my toe back in I felt inadequate and useless. If I tweeted someone I felt stupid for trying too hard immediately afterwards. Why? Because I was trying to work out why this woman didn't like me. A woman I don't know, who doesn't know me, who could have a multitude of reasons for unfollowing me that I will never know. A multitude of reasons that have nothing to do with me. Because whatever she has decided about me is not a reality. She doesn't and cannot know me. 

But I had desperately wanted to be her friend. She lives near me and we work in the same industry. I tried to be her friend. And by trying I failed. Because you can't try to be someones friend. You can be someones friend but it doesn't happen by force of will. It comes by genuine interchange and connection. And I was jumping forward. I might not even bloody like this woman in real life. But I allowed that little, insignificant rejection to affect me for weeks. 

The same way that every time I write something for the novel that doesn't work because I am trying to write something bigger than just the start, I fail. The same way that the mother who tries too hard to please her child forgets to please herself and fails them both. The same way the woman returning from maternity leave tries to pretend having a child waiting at home hasn't changed her perspective. The same way the athlete who went to the Olympics to try to win a gold finds the word that allows a get out clause is the comfort they use later, "I tried my best". Why try to do your best. Do your best, if your best is silver, or just outside the medals then take your best and be proud of it. 

Lets just stop trying to be or do or say things and actually be and do and say. We're all so much better when we stop trying. 

Alcohol and Sheep Droppings Free

This is our field lady 

If you happen to cross through a field of sheep on your travels then you should be warned that avoiding treading on a sheep dropping is as difficult as avoiding alcohol in a pub. 



But it is possible.



Today, I did both. Okay, well, one of my crutches went in a Sheep dropping but I my actual self did not. 



I am on holiday in Devon at the moment, a week that was supposed to be spent walking and maybe even learning to surf, has been transformed somewhat by the broken toe I currently have and the crutches this necessitates. However, I have managed two reasonably short coastal walks. 



Short is in fact all relative, Elijah Wood, is for me perfectly formed, for others he is short. These walks would have been short for my able body but when I have to use my arms to walk, they have actually been long and arduous, and brilliant all the same. 



Today's walk started at a pub. I had passed it on the bus a few times this week and decided I needed to go and have a drink or some food there at some point, it has spectacular sea views from the back of it. I woke this morning with nothing on my to do list except publish my first blog post, written two days ago. With that task done I decided a pub lunch, a walk and a sit by the sea were in order. 



I got the bus to the pub, from where I would walk back to the beach near where I am staying. 



Since I decided to start this blog I have also been thinking about stopping drinking, possibly for a month, maybe a year, maybe indefinitely. It's been lingering at the back of my mind alongside the idea for this blog for a while. 



So on the bus I told myself that I would not have a drink today. That I would go for a soft drink. In fact, alcohol didn't appeal at all. As I searched my taste buds I found that not even cider was tempting me. So good, I would not drink today. 




As I stepped into the pub, (one you must visit if you're ever in the South Hams / Dartmouth area, The Kings Arms in Strete) I was greeted warmly by the lady behind the bar. 



I was informed there was a wait on food and no tables with a sea view. But the welcome was warm and the pub lovely, I was happy to sit without a view and wait for food.
"What do I want to drink?" I asked us both. "Would you like alcohol or a soft drink." 




I wavered. I could have a cider. I mean, there was a wait for food, so perhaps I should have a drink I would be able to sip slowly. I could have a cider. 



"What soft drinks do you have?"



Now this is truly what clinched it. Had she said, juice, lemonade, coke I would have gone for the cider. But she listed an array of interesting soft drinks, from pink lemonade to ginger beer to some nettle drink. I followed my taste buds and went with a pink lemonade. I washed this down with a ginger beer. Both were delightful and neither left me bloated, red faced or sluggish. 



As I said, I am on holiday and every day so far has included a drink. Not a lot of drink but a pint or two, possibly a glass of red wine. Each trip out has been "rewarded" with a drink. 



As I started to think about giving up drink, I ear marked Monday as the start. Finish the holiday first, visit the friends as planned on Sunday and then quit drink for a month, maybe more. 




This though seemed to ignore the entire reason for me wanting to give up alcohol alongside sugar (to clarify, I mean refined sugar - I will still be taking in good, natural sugars - and this I am starting when I am home with my own kitchen). I want to get out of the habit of "rewarding" myself with sweet treats or alcohol. Been a long day at work? Have a drink. Been for a good run? Have some chocolate. It's the weekend, have a drink. It's Monday and you survived, have a drink. It's 3pm and you've almost got through another day at work, have a biscuit. 



On holiday? Eat and drink whatever you like. In fact, eat and drink whatever you don't even like because it's holiday and holiday means having a drink, or a dessert even if you're a bit sick of both. 



That's the pattern of thinking I want to break. 



I want to be clear here, I don't have a problem with alcohol but I do have a lazy imagination when it's on the table. Especially living in London where despite there being an awful lot to do, it all revolves or exists very close to alcohol. 



There's the pub, a restaurant, a trip to the theatre, a trip to the cinema, a walk across the Heath which takes you to many a fine pub. There's alcohol in every catch up with friends and I've become lazy with it. 



"What shall we do?" "Shall we go for a drink?" 



But what if this wasn't an option anymore? What else might I find when I'm not just going for a drink with friends? Will I write more, walk more, exercise more, visit more cultural things, talk more? 



I want to rethink what "rewarding myself" means. Because I love walking, I love writing, I love reading, I love swimming, I love running, I love yoga and Pilates, I love coffee, I love cooking, I love eating good food, I love being by the sea, I love listening to music, I love learning new things, I love looking at art, I love history, I love watching documentaries, I love acting (once I've got over the fear of doing it), I love making new work and I love talking to my friends. So why are these not the rewards? Why is it always alcohol or chocolate or something that doesn't enrich particularly, that I turn to after a hard day, or because I am bored? 



So it is entirely fitting that I should give up alcohol whilst still on holiday and surrounded by things I truly love and enjoy. The sea, good books, my own thoughts, a pen and paper, nature, silence, music and the horizon. 



In the end avoiding alcohol was far less tricky than avoiding the sheep droppings as I left the pub for a good hike across a coastal path. As I entered the field the sheep all looked at me the way a whole village pub looks at you, a stranger, who just entered their bar and then ordered a soft drink. You strange being you...what brings you this way? 



And with a tentative step, I weaved my way through the carpet of their droppings as they stared at me. I put one wobbly step in front of the other and I got to the other side, dropping and alcohol free. 

Black Dog Quits Sugar

If I were to listen to the voice that is constantly telling me what is wrong with me, and if I were to pick one to focus on it would be consistency. 


If I were to listen to it all the time and hear all the faults I'd probably just climb under a rock and never reappear. But when it comes to consistency, I think it's on to something. 


Who else is guilty of this? 

I'm going to lose weight 

I'm going to learn a new language

I'm going to learn an instrument

I'm going to wake up an hour early every day and go for a run

I'm going to write a diary every day

I'm going to write the novel I've been dreaming of

I am going to spend more time with family

I am....


...going to make lists of things I'm going to do my entire life until I die. But I didn't put die on the list so HOW CAN I DIE? It's not on the list. 


Ideas. That's my problem. Okay, so if I was to listen to the voice that daily tells me what is wrong with me and pick two things, I'd pick consistency and ideas. Too many ideas. 


Ha! You scoff, that's not a problem. Alack, alas, by Jove, be my witness, it is. Much like the sentence that preceded this one, I had so many ideas and ways to voice that idea that I could go on and on and on thinking about how to start and by the time I had started a brand new idea would have stolen my attention. My inconsistent attention. 


Oh hi there idea, you're mighty fine looking, you're like Prince Harry in a hard hat, why - I could stare at you all day. And that is what I shall do. No, wait, the Elijah Wood of ideas has entered my peripheral and he's so small and perfectly formed and decent. Sorry Harry, but ultimately, I don't think I want to be a Princess, I want to roam and explore and be all musical and WAIT - is that the Ben Howard of ideas singing to me? What a pretty tune he weaves. I shall sit and listen until the sun goes down and then maybe I'll write something. 


What were we talking about? 


Oh, yes, weight gain. You see, if I was to listen to the voice that tells me everything that's wrong with me every day and pick three things to focus on, they would be consistency, ideas and fat. 


I'm fat with ideas, I'm fat with food, I'm fat without exercise and I am inconsistent or as the voice prefers, lazy. 


If I don't see the fat that seemingly keeps growing on my arms, legs, hips, face (WHY THE FACE?! Save at least the face - COME ON!) change after one day of exercise and or diet, then, well, I move onto the next idea. 


One cake won't make a difference, heck, not eating it yesterday didn't make a difference, so why will eating it today make a difference? 


Oh shut up future, no one wants to know you yet. You, you're filled with failures and lost dreams and worst of all, hope. I won't stare at your bright light because I am besieged by ideas and plans and fat right now, today, here, now. You can't help me with your promise of something else, you're too far away. 


If I'm honest, I don't much like the idea of hiding under a rock and so I will strike a deal with the critique in my head and agree that from now on, all we talk about are those three faults. I'm not having more. Shove them. Shove them right where that rock hiding place is and walk away. 


But if we are to have a dialogue about all this then, to use my own fault against me, we're going to have to be consistent. This is an idea. It's been an idea for a while. One I've flirted with and put back down and left behind for fancier ideas. But I keep coming back to it and now here it is, on one knee, promising that this will be really really hard work but all the best things are. That together, we are stronger. That if my hands weren't so fat it would be putting a diamond on my finger. I hate diamonds. I knew this idea was shit! It doesn't even know that I hate diamonds. 


Okay, sorry, idea, you were saying...


I know you're really scared of commitment and routine freaks you out and familiarity is damn right terrifying and trying means maybe failing and failing means nothing, it means nothing at all. You fail, you start again, you move on. But not trying, not starting, not committing to one single thing means staring in the mirror and seeing real failure. Seeing all the things you hate about yourself staring right back. Seeing your own fear and it's ugly. 


The idea takes my hand in his, we're both crying now, "do you, Miss Smith, promise to walk this path with me. To write even when you feel terrible. To stick with me through thick, thin, fat and terrible. To be consistent in your effort, especially when you fall. To stop searching for an idea and to do, to do this one idea?"

"I do."

And so begins: ladies and gentlemen who struggle with the black dog, who have gained weight, who feel stuck in a rut, who want to be healthier, here begins 'Black Dog quits sugar'. In which I spend a year trying to get healthy, give up the white beast and see if I'm consistent I can actually lose weight as a happy side effect. But more importantly, if I can stay with an idea, battle my own doubts, stare in the mirror and keep going, even if I don't like what stares back and consistently write about it all. 


I would like to add as a footnote that the idea and I had this conversation over two days and on two different beaches. It was so romantic, so it was...