Digging Deeper: How to break through when times get tough

Almost three weeks ago, life threw me what feels like yet another curveball. 

I knew I was going into surgery to have an ovary removed (long story short- it had become infected from what the doctors assume might have been a parasite I had picked up whilst travelling). I woke up with a colostomy bag and part of my intestine now external to my body, sticking out of my stomach. The ovary had grown into the bowel and my intestines needed to be operated on in order to remove it. I freaked out. I wasn’t happy at all about it. This surgery was setting me back far more than what I had anticipated. Now, as well as not being able to exercise for 6 weeks, it seemed like so many more aspects of my life were about to become more inconvenient and far more awkward.

The good news is that the surgery itself went smoothly. I have recovered fairly quickly to the point where I don’t feel too much abdominal pain anymore or fatigue and I am finally rid of a nasty, stubborn infection.

But I won’t lie, the last two years of my life have really made me question what the hell I did for karma to bite me in the butt like this. Did I manifest this bad luck? Is life trying to tell me I’m making all the wrong decisions right now? This is my third operation in three years and fourth time being a hospital patient. It seems unfair, for a person who is young, fit and healthy to have had this string of incidents. On top of that, with lockdowns and isolation due to Covid-19, starting and running a face-to-face business over the last year seemingly couldn’t have been done at worse timing. I’m not looking for sympathy, I’m just providing context.

The reason why I share all of this is to touch on the broader topic of getting through hard times.

If you’re anything like me, you might like to set high expectations for yourself. At the very least, you hope to be on a somewhat positive trajectory over time of self improvement and achievement. After all, who wants to feel as if they have wasted time stagnating or even going backwards?

In my last blog post I talked all about setting goals, related to your health and fitness, finances, career, any other skill you want to learn.

I discussed the importance of setting goals and reflecting on your progress frequently. However, even though goals are important, it’s equally important to take into account that sometimes we do get held back and achieving everything we want might not be realistic.

Sometimes, you really have to just dig deep in order to break through.

I’m currently reading the book, ‘The Gifts of Imperfection’, by Brene Brown. She discusses how she used to have a tendency of sacrificing her personal needs in order to finish a task, she called it ‘Digging Deep’ at the time. When it seems like we’ve run out of all motivation and doing important things feels almost impossible, usually we can all find just that little bit of extra drive to get us over the line, and then we will be rewarded with relaxation and a sense of pride afterwards.

However, she explains that this isn’t always healthy or necessary. Although ‘Digging Deep’ is actually an important tool as a part of living a wholehearted life, it should be more about thinking what your body and mind is trying to tell you when you are feeling exhausted, burnt out or emotional- and taking deliberate action around that.

So, think DIG deep, when times get tough:

D- be Deliberate

I- get Inspired to do something different

G- get Going!

When you notice yourself falling off track, for whatever reason, pick yourself up again by recognising what’s going on and then taking action that fulfils that specific need for you right now.

In my case, I was feeling self conscious of my body and my capabilities as a personal trainer and ‘fitness role model’. This led me into a slump of mindless scrolling on social media and abandoning my healthy eating routine, sleep schedule and even getting some sunlight outside or talking to people. Although I made the choice not to feel guilty about that, those energy draining patterns only made me feel even worse, even though at the time I considered those things justifiable. They are, but only really to an extent. At some point, you need to ‘DIG deep’, and break through that cycle! 

What I decided to do was to introduce a very gentle, surgery approved workout routine that I did just once that week, start focusing on healthy eating again and give myself a really good pedicure- with a foot scrub and everything. It sounds almost silly, but it helped me feel more like myself again. Instead of feeling guilty that I didn’t use my spare time ‘productively’- say doing a whole bunch of admin work or planning out social media posts, I was able to take small actions that actually energised me and made me feel more motivated to get back on track with my main goals.

I hope this story inspires you to do the same.

When things aren’t going your way, sometimes digging deep actually means looking inwards, rather than pushing through or sucking it up. What is your body telling you it needs, and how can you respect that need in the moment? I promise you that, even if you think that looking after those needs feels ‘unproductive’ or like it’s slowing you down, often you’ll actually achieve more (and do it far better) than if you tried to use your last ounce of mental and emotional energy to get there.