The Joy of Half-Assing It

One of my kids recently told me about a discovery they had made, that sometimes if a thing looks too big to do well, you can just—half-ass it. I suspect that for my kids, their idea of “half-assing” something may end up looking less like sand-bagging and more like doing a very good job. Mostly this is learning to let go of the idea that you have to be perfect, and it’s something I’ve been struggling with for most of my life.

I used to think that I couldn’t possibly be a “perfectionist” because I never did anything perfect. (Cue laughter here.) I think that I’m supposed to be perfect, but I have extremely high standards for myself and I’ve never once achieved them. I always feel like I’m “settling” for just short of my ridiculously high goals for myself.

When I was in high school, I kept an extensive daily journal, which included a list of at least twenty New Year’s goals, which I never achieved, and always felt bad about. The next year, I’d recommit (you know the drill) and fail again. It wasn’t until in my late thirties that it occurred to me that me setting goals was actually counter-productive and made me feel bad about myself. I spent an entire year trying to set no goals (except for, you know, the setting no goals thing). I was pretty good about it, though I wasn’t perfect. Haha!

One of the major realities of not setting goals was simply that I slept better. I wasn’t constantly worrying the night before a workout (or a race) about whether or not I was going to achieve my goal the next day. Before this year, it wasn’t uncommon for me to get no sleep at all the night before a race, and on a couple of occasions, I couldn’t sleep, so I just got up and did the workout that was bothering me at 2 a.m. so I could finally be done with it and go to sleep, exhausted but no longer worried.

This behavior had long been ingrained in me. It didn’t just come up when I started racing in my thirties. It was instilled in my childhood by parents who had high expectations and who made it clear that there was only one way to gain their approval—by meeting and exceeding those expectations. I spent my teen years so exhausted that I cringe when re-reading my teen journals. The number of books I read each week alone is enough to floor me, not to mention classes that I was taking—and my swim team schedule.

Am I any different now? I suspect I am at least aware now that being constantly busy doesn’t make me a better person and that chasing after the approval of others is a losing game. But nonetheless, I have to consciously give myself permission to “half-ass” it. I’ve been struggling with dental pain after a root canal the last several weeks and I had to write on my mirror, “Give Mette a break. She’s having a hard time” so that I notice it every day and learn to have lower expectations. When my boss and I had our regular “goal setting” session this week, I insisted my goal was to just do as well as I have before, not better. (But since I’m already above the company goal, is this really half-assing it?)

Last week I did a marathon and this week, when I went back to my regular trainer and tried to do a Bulgarian split squat set, I was overly optimistic about the weight I’d be able to manage. I ended up down in the squat, unable to get up because I’d put on too much weight. My virtual trainer had to talk me out of how to let go of the weights without hurting myself. I’m trying to learn the proper lesson here. Start out easy, make sure you can handle it, and go from there. But, as my mother used to tell me, my eyes are often bigger than my stomach. My reach exceeds my grasp.

In high school, I got in trouble with the health teacher because I was trying to finish out swim team the first six weeks of class and therefore missed the pop quizzes. I had a C- in his class and when I tried to explain that I got there as soon as the swim team bus arrived, he had little sympathy. I ended up shrugging and accepting that he would give me a lower grade. I was half-assing it, which was less painful when it was something I didn’t care about. But things I really do care about—it’s a work in progress, friends.