Pushing yourself again

Redoubtable Doubters! Graham here.

Last week I did something I haven’t done in ages. I got up and spoke in front of a crowd of 500 people. All day.

Good lord why.

I was MC’ing a big mental health conference here in Melbourne. 

The conference was an important milestone for Victoria’s mental health sector. It’s been 18 months since the Royal Commission’s ground-breaking report about how we need to overhaul the mental health system. This was a chance for everyone to come together to talk about how it’s all going, and what needs to happen next.

So I wanted to say yes when they asked me to MC.

But I also wanted to say ‘HELL NO.’ 

Why? Because apart from Big Feels stuff, I’ve not been working much this past few months due to ongoing long COVID stuff.

I’ve been feeling a lot better lately (thank god), and wanting to work more, but leading a big important conference felt like a very ‘in the deep end’ way to begin. 

In the end I said no, then maybe, then a tentative yes. And the whole experience was a total roller coaster. But I’m so glad I did it. 

Today’s topic: if you’ve been taking it easy for a while, for health or mental health reasons, how do you know when it’s time to push yourself again? And how do you deal with the inevitable storm of self-doubt that follows?

The Three LIFE phases

First, a few thoughts on where ‘pushing yourself’ fits into the broader picture of life with big feelings.

Being the ‘sensitive type’ can leave you feeling like you’re living in a kind of constant spin cycle. 

(Just me?)

But if you step back from it, I think the spin is often more of a cycle. 

I find I’m usually in one of three basic life phases: Pushing Myself, Overdoing It, or Resting.

Pushing Yourself

When you’re Pushing Yourself, you’re getting out of your comfort zone on a regular basis, which is hard, but also brings good things into your life, like connection and opportunities. 

You’re nervous but you're growing.

(This was very much me the week of the conference. More on that shortly.)

Overdoing It

When you’re Overdoing It, you’re saying ‘yes’ more than ‘no’. You’re finding your limits, sometimes all at once. For me in this phase, the nervousness is still there, but the nervous *energy* isn’t. Instead, I just feel really tense most of the time. Exhausted but wired.

The perfect combo.

Resting

Finally, there’s the Resting phase. This is where you get to recuperate and reflect (in theory at least). 

Though you'll probably also feel a little bored or lacking purpose.

(This was me for the past few months, in the grips of the COVID fatigue. Bored as all hell.)

The Resting phase isn’t always that restful. For many of us, it’s where we start to ask some big questions we’ve been avoiding. Questions like Am I happy in this relationship? Is my career going well? Questions that are equal parts unsettling and, at times, useful.

Seasons of life?

In a recent member talk, I spoke about how some of these phases get a bad rap.

In particular, the ‘Resting’ phase is often talked about as a sign that something’s gone wrong. You’re burnt out, you’re depressed, you’ve taken a wrong turn.

But what if there’s another way to look at this?

What if each of these phases has its place, and they work together like seasons, each one leading into the next?

Noticing what you miss

These past few months, I haven’t been able to do as much as I’d like to, which has been frustrating. But it’s also given me an opportunity to rest in a way that I would usually feel deeply guilty about.

I turned down a bunch of work when I got sick, which was painful, but I really had no other choice.

In the absence of my usual routine, there was suddenly space to notice the things I really miss: regular friend connections, strong work routines, exercise. 

This enforced period of rest has allowed me to look with fresh eyes on the things I value in life. Friendship, work, the very things I often find ‘harder’ than others in my life seem to. After having to scale them back for a while, I’m reminded they’re worth all that hard work, because I value them deeply.

I wouldn’t say this past few months has been easy by any stretch, but looking back I can see how it has its place in a broader cycle. The winter thawing into spring.

So what does that transition look like?

For me, the return to ‘pushing myself’ has come in fits and starts.

The first sign I was ready to push myself again was the scuba trip I went on a few weeks back.

What did I say about jumping in the deep end?

Honor had had this scuba trip booked for months, and I was sure I wasn’t going to go. 

‘I’m not up to it’... ‘I don’t like those kinds of holidays anyway, too many people.’

And then, next thing I knew, I was booking a dive medical and enrolling in a scuba course -- all of which was more physical and mental activity than I’d done in months. 

The trip was incredible, and once we got home, I crashed again for a bit. Another mini Resting phase. But something had shifted. 

Something in me was hungry for a challenge again.

And now it’s hungry for more.

The power of doubt

Earlier this month I had the thought: I want to get back to work again. 

I was ready. And I was also nervous and filled with doubts.

‘What if my health isn’t up to it?’ 

‘What if I’m rusty and not good at my job anymore? I’ve been out of the loop for months!’

I wrote the following sentence at the top of my To Do list. It’s still there now: 

“I can do something important, even when doubts are present.”

It’s a quote from Russ Harris’ wonderful book The Happiness Trap, which I’ve been devouring this past month.

The idea is simple. Important things are hard. When we try to do hard things, especially if we haven’t done hard things for a while, we’re going to be plagued by doubts. 

Those doubts are a great sign. They show we’re moving in the right direction -- towards something of value to us.

This is the power of doubt. It’s like a compass pointing the way.

Useful doubts

Once I said yes to MC’ing the conference, the doubts went into overdrive. The compass direction was uncomfortably clear! Do. The. Scary. Thing.

The doubts told me all sorts of stories about how and why I’d fail:

‘You’re not up to this. It’s a full day conference! You’ll crash by lunch!’

‘How are you going to run this thing? You don’t know how the reform is going, you’ve been in bed for five months!’

Russ Harris has a simple approach to thoughts like these, which I’ve written about before.

When a doubt like this comes up, you first ask yourself the question: ‘is this a useful thought?’

In the case of my doubts about the conference, it was a mixed bag. The thought ‘you don’t know how the reform’s been going’ was actually kind of useful. It spurred me to contact a few of my most keyed-in colleagues before the conference, to get a temperature check on what they’d been seeing these past few months. This served me really well. 

But of course, that didn’t stop the doubting thoughts.

Not-so-useful doubts

Russ Harris says, when it comes to those not-so-useful doubts, the key is to not try to get rid of them.

And I can confirm, as I prepped for the conference, any attempt to argue with a thought like ‘you’re not up to this’ would usually just lead to more outlandish scary thoughts.

‘Even if you can do it, you’ll probably just get COVID again and be back in bed for months.’

Dr Russ says, rather than try to get rid of the thought, the trick is to find ways to be a little more comfortable with the fact that those scary thoughts are going to be there no matter what (and of course they are, because you’re doing something important.)

‘Thanks, Mind’

As the big day approached, I made liberal use of one of The Happiness Trap’s simplest techniques for responding to not-so-useful doubts.

When you notice a doubting thought, repeat it back to yourself, but add these six words on to the start: 

‘I am having the thought that…’

So…

‘I am having the thought that I’m not up to this.’

‘I am having the thought that I’m going to catch COVID again.’

‘I am having the thought that this won’t be a conference at all, just a room full of bats, and worse I won’t remember any of their names.’

Those six little words (‘I am having the thought that…’) are a simple reminder that these doubting thoughts are just that. Thoughts. 

They might even be true thoughts. Who knows! I won’t find out until after I’ve done the scary thing.

But regardless of whether they’re true or not, these thoughts aren’t useful. And since I’ve already decided to do the scary thing regardless, the best thing I can do is to let that thought be there, while I get on with whatever preparation I need to do. 

In the days before the conference, I used this technique every few minutes. After a while, I could use the more shorthand version whenever a doubting thought reappeared: 

‘Thanks, Mind. Your concerns are noted.’

How’d I do?

The conference went great. I got a whole bunch of feedback about how well I did, and what a “calming presence” I was on stage. (HA!)

A Big Feels Clubber even came up to me right at the start just to say ‘I love your work!’ Which was a truly delightful way to start the day.

As the day unfolded, I got more and more comfortable, enjoying doing something that’s hard but that I’m good at.

After the conference, I crashed again - for another week. This freaked me out of course (‘I am having the thought that I’ve triggered the fatigue again’). But it’s come right. 

I’m still in transition, I think. I’m working every day, but still finding my limits. I’m deciding between a few work offers that each have different demands and different doubting thoughts associated with them.

Did I make this shift happen, from Resting to Pushing Myself again? Or did I just do my best to navigate a shift in season that was always bigger than me? 

I still don’t know. Maybe it doesn’t matter. 

But here I am, hungry for what’s next. Grateful for opportunities to stretch myself. Curious what valuable things my doubts will keep leading me to…

— Graham x