A few years ago, I was capable of managing my challenges better than I am now. Or at least that’s what I remember. But in this period, it seems that the BPD symptoms are more active than I would want and, because it seems that the plan doesn’t work, I have to manage the situation a bit differently.
In short, at the end of last month, on the 27th of October, I started a challenge (of which I wrote about in the previous article) that I named Dopamine Detox. It should last until the end of November – a total of 34 days. The purpose of this challenge was to help me get rid of some behaviors that are toxic for my dopamine. Or, at least, to reduce them.
So, I started that. No sugar, no carbs, no dumb scrolling on social media. For the first 8 days, I did a good job. But after that, I entered a splitting moment (BPD related), and on the 9th day, I ate everything I didn’t want to eat and spent time on Instagram. Since then, I couldn’t help myself and I kept dumb scrolling on Instagram. And I got back to eating healthily, but only for two days. In the 12th day, I repeated the 9th day, this time with more junk food and dumb scrolling.
That’s when I noticed something was different. That’s when I realized that when the plan doesn’t work, I had to adjust the route, because my first impulse was to punish myself.
Instead of punishing yourself, adjust the route
Therefore, from the 13th day (on 9 November), I started doing something else: running 5 kilometers every day, ideally until the end of the month.
But after 9 days of daily running (today being the 9th day), I realized that I can’t do this until the end of the month.
First of all, I feel tired. It’s the kind of psychological tiredness that is not too much connected to running, but to all the moments from this year, that kept accumulating, and with the BPD symptoms that I experienced these days.
Also, I’m looking at the weather report and I see it’s going to rain for the next 5 days. “For sure, I’m not going to run” is what I tell myself and for this exact reason, I’m not going to continue my runs. Having this said, for the remaining 12 days until the end of the month, I will meditate.
I want to go back to some sessions of meditation that I did intensively from the end of 2023 and the spring of 2024, and see how I manage to do that. Therefore, the last 12 days will be about meditation.
What does it mean to adjust the route when things don’t go according to the plan
I started feeling difficulties regarding the challenges I set myself and it was clear to me that I had to change a few things when I felt like I couldn’t do it anymore.
I felt my brain getting drained of energy to think properly and how the pressure of continuing the challenge was suffocating my body. It was like my body was desperately screaming (yes, that’s how intense it was), asking me to stop.
Therefore, I had to change something.
But changing the activities of the challenge wasn’t what actually mattered.
In fact, the thing that helped me relax was changing the way I looked at the whole challenge – all the 34 days as one thing, not separately.
Initially, when I started with the change in diet, I strongly believed that I could do that for the duration of the challenge. I forgot about my splitting moments (I usually do that) and I was very focused. But the more I realized the plan didn’t work the way I wanted, I also realized that I had to change the way I looked at the big picture.
So I started telling myself this: It doesn’t matter if I don’t do one thing for 34 days in a row. What matters is that for every day of these 34 days, I do what I set myself to do, and that can be 5 different things.
I believe this is a healthier way to look at it, especially when the plan doesn’t work.
It makes me think about one of my favorite quotes:
„Always plan for the fact that no plan ever goes according to plan.” – Simon Sinek.
When I think about the way I adjusted the challenge so I could finish it, I feel really proud of myself.
Looking back at the period from 2017, when I went through 12 different challenges (one each month), I realize that the way I used to look at challenges back then was very different. I remember that I used to force things, and I used to continue doing it, no matter what happened or how I felt. It was… ok, but I feel the new approach is better.
With love and optimism,
David
