Estimated Reading Time 7 Minutes
Hey You! Welcome to The Vibrant Life Podcast. I’m Emily Romrell and another Friday is upon us. I hope you’re having a happy day and that you are enjoying this holiday season with people you love. Christmas is only nine days away my friends. I’m so excited. But whether you celebrate Christmas or not, I sincerely hope you are doing well and making some happy memories.
And really quick before we get into the swing of things today. I want to thank you for listening to the podcast. If you feel like these messages bring value to your life, I would be so grateful for a quick review on Apple Podcasts, and a hit on that subscribe button. Also, don’t forget to share the love with those amazing friends and family members!
I’ve been looking forward to our topic today because it’s something I struggle with and it’s been a great reminder for me personally to remember this principle. Today we’re talking about giving less than 100%. Now, before you get all huffy and anxious, hear me out. This is an idea that people have a hard time with but if you embrace it, it can make a big difference in your life. So please try to have an open mind and an open heart for the next few minutes.
I think a major problem in society at large and with people individually is all or nothing thinking. Like I said before, I struggle with this a lot. If I’m not perfect at something, then I often feel I must be a failure. There are some situations in life where there are black and white solutions, like math equations for example. But here’s the truth, life is a journey, growth is a process, and more times than not, there are many ways (not just one) to find answers.
Several years ago, I was working at an office and one of my co-workers said something like, “I can’t come into work unless I know I can give 100% so I’m not coming in unless I know I can do my best.” Now, I understand this girl had good intentions but let’s dive a little deeper into that. What is better zero percent or 60 percent? What’s better, zero percent or 10 percent? The math on that seems pretty obvious.
We are all taught as kids to do our best. At least, I hope we are. And somewhere down the line, we decided that doing our best means giving 100% all the time. But peeps, that is not only unrealistic, but it’s also exhausting. How do you give 100% to your work, and to your family, and to your community, etc? The truth is that you don’t. If you’re a shining example of excellence it’s probably more like an 80/20 situation. So you’re eighty percent focused on the task at hand and the other twenty percent is taken up in random thoughts, hunger, distractions from nearby people, health concerns, or any number of other things. If you’re not living at the top of your game then the percentage will be even less.
I believe a key to fixing this is to shift our focus from what we are not giving to what we are giving. The world is not great at appreciating this. There’s always a giant metaphorical finger pointing out the gaps in what we are not doing. But even 1 percent is a heck of a lot better than zero. Here are a few examples of what one percent can be worth:
- According to Google at the time I am doing this podcast, 1% of the net worth of Amazon is 16.5 billion US$
- 1% of 1 day =14.4 minutes. That’s about the average length of my podcast episodes, just sayin.
- One percent of the total global population in December of 2021 is about 78 million people. And even just one human life is priceless.
It kind of makes you think about how we value different things, doesn’t it? Are our priorities in the right order? Hmm…?
I was trying to figure out a good visualization for the image for this podcast and I decided the only way to go was with a pie. There’s a lot of meaning in our culture in pie, right? Who doesn’t want a piece of the pie? But even in that ageless saying, we are only getting a piece of the pie, not one hundred percent. And even if the thought of eating a whole pie sounds good, we all know it would make us sick. And if you know those people who think they deserve the whole pie, you will probably agree with me that those people are not truly happy in life. They might own a lot, but greed has a tendency to do nasty things to the soul.
So hopefully, now we can agree that it’s okay to give less than 100% and that doesn’t mean we are giving less than our best.
One thing that I know for sure in my life is that at some days I have more to give than others, energy-wise. Energy management is a constant struggle for me. Some days are great and I can maybe give 80% of my energy to the cause in front of me. Other days are a lot harder and I am only able to give a much smaller number, like 30% or even maybe 1%. But the other side to this is, that I can always give something. My number doesn’t ever have to be zero. Every scrap of effort makes a difference.
Sometimes even though I understand the concepts I’m talking about in my brain, I’m pretty hard on myself when those low numbers show up in my life. In my heart, I want to be doing so much more. Thoughts like I should be able to do this, or I’m supposed to do that can tear me to pieces if I let them. And it can be very easy to choose not to even try because I know my efforts will fall short of those expectations.
It goes back to that perfectionist all-or-nothing thinking, right? It is a killer. Literally. I’m not joking. Letting those thoughts control you will kill your dreams and suck the life right out of you. So I think it’s important to have a plan when those kinds of thoughts attack.
I was listening to a Brenè Brown podcast several months ago, and she was talking about relationships, but this works well in your relationship with yourself as well as with others. So Brenè and her husband realized that they couldn’t always give 50/50 in the relationship. Sometimes one of them might be at a 25 and then the other partner would make up the difference and give 75 or whatever. But what do you do when both partners are at a low? What if each of you is only at a 10? Or what if you are just by yourself and trying your best but your best is only a ten on a given day?
Well, they came up with what they call a gap plan, and I think it’s genius. If you find yourself in depletion, you enter a sort of crisis mode and activate this gap plan. Here is the gap plan their family uses that she shared on her episode: Comparative Suffering, the 50/50 Myth, and Settling the Ball. (I put a link to that episode in the show notes and your should absolutely check it out!)
- An eight hour sleep minimum for everyone. (I know from experience how vital sleep is, my friends. Get the rest you need.)
- Move your body. This is quoting Brené Brown directly, “Move your body, it’s where we store anxiety. Not one of us can get back to where we need to be without moving our bodies in our family, and I believe that’s true of all of us, it’s where we store anxiety, it’s where we store our grief, it’s where we store hard things.”
- (Still directly quoting here:) Eat well. A crisis, whether it’s this pandemic or just any crisis at home, during more normal times, crisis can lead to Buddy the Elf eating. You know Buddy’s four food groups: candy, candy canes, candy corns, and syrup. That gives us an instant relief and then that insulin sugar up and crash, and up and crash, is so hard on our emotions and our body. So, eat well.
- Limit the news, again, gasoline on the anxiety fire.
So those first four items on the plan seem like common sense, right? But for some reason when we don’t feel good we tend to fall into bad habits that directly contradict these first four practices of good health. So it’s critical to be deliberate and take any necessary actions to put rest, exercise, nutrition, and a healthy mindset into our lives in a meaningful way.
After this Brené Brown talks about how the family can support each other when one or more of them are in a low percentage. These things were more specific to their family but also very powerful and they include:
- No harsh words
- No nice words with harsh faces
- Say You’re Sorry
- Accept apologies with thank you. (She explains that when someone offers you a real apology you shouldn’t say, “That’s okay.” You should say, “Thank you.” That’s pretty powerful when you think about it.)
- Puns and Knock Knock Jokes. When you can be silly together everything is okay and you feel better.
Isn’t that an amazing “Gap Plan”? I haven’t had a real plan as I’ve experienced some lower numbers lately and this is very inspiring to me. So I’m going to work on that and I’m going to come up with some actions I can take when I’m struggling on those low percentage days. It’s brilliant!
But even if you don’t have a gap plan, or even after you implement your gap plan, it’s super important to remember that it’s okay to give less than 100%. If you are honest with yourself and you give what you can, then you can be satisfied that you gave your best that day even if it was a one percent day. I think Heavenly Father honors our efforts on those one percent days maybe even more than the efforts on easier days, kind of like a widow’s mite type situation. But if you have more give more. Always do your best, and if it’s your best then it’s always enough.
I hope y’all have an incredible week and I hope the 1% of today that we’ve spent together has helped you in the quest to Live The Vibrant Life. Take care, my friends.
