You have to know how to pivot

I forgot to clean my cats’ litter box for a few days. Typically, I clean it in the mornings when I feed them. My routine; wake up, start the Nespresso machine, feed the cats, clean their box, journal and start the day. However, I’ve been going to bed later, waking later and Hubs has been feeding them. The litter box is upstairs in the back corner where I have no reason to go, except to clean the box. So it didn’t get done. 

Yesterday afternoon I went ‘ahh fuck’, ran up there around eight pm and cleaned it. It was pretty gross, so I ended up stripping it, putting baking soap on the wet spots and turning up the air purifier to make sure the aroma didn’t linger. It took me longer than normal because there was more build up than normal, but this morning it was a quick job. 

I have all the supplies; the litter, the scoops, bags from Walmart, and the cats to make the poop. I know it needs to be done, but it got away from me. You know what I didn’t do? Beat myself up about it. I completed the job and moved on with my day. I didn’t say ‘well I’ll never do that again because it’s too much work. I might as well let it continue to build up.’ If you’re thinking that’s an overreaction, think about your reaction the last time you skipped a planned workout, ate off plan, or missed your step goal. Did you beat yourself up over it? Did you think ‘ahhh screw it I’ll start again on the first of the month’? Did you wait until after the holidays to cut carbs again? Did you wait until after a big event to check in with your step count? 

Building the practice you keep isn’t about perfection, it’s about finding a practice you return to time and time again. It’s not a one and done. It’s not something that needs rigorous execution, it’s something that’s built with consistent application. Primal talks about the 80/20 rule. 80% of the time we get it right, 20% of the time we have some wiggle room. It’s not an excuse or a free pass, it’s a way to give yourself grace as a human. 

Let’s translate this to wellness; you have a free weight selection at home and plan to lift three days a week. But you miss Monday, and that’s when the tailspin starts. Monday is upper body, so that you are recovered by the time you play Pickleball on the weekend. Now you’re wondering if you should move it to Tuesday, or Wednesday, or if you should skip it altogether this week. Wednesday arrives, but you still haven’t made a decision about the upper body workout, so paralyzed by indecision you skip lower body because you don’t know what to do. Friday arrives and you think well, I’m already so far behind there’s no sense in even doing a workout today. One week off because two and then the weights are dusty tripping hazards in the basement. 

If you’re educated in Primal living there is no tailspin, you know; one monday out of the year is isn’t even 1%, one workout out of the 12 you planned in a month is 8%, it’s the wiggle room. When Wednesday arrives you do your planned lower body workout, Friday you do your workout and when Monday rolls around you’re excited about your upper body workout because you didn’t get a chance to do it last week. You actually go up in weights because you’ve had extra recovery time and set new standards for yourself. 

Primal living doesn’t hold you hostage to a plan, there are no stringent plans to hold yourself too, nothing to beat yourself over. If you eat the birthday cake you weren’t planning on eating, you still eat your planned dinner. If you miss your step goal, you analyze the root cause, enjoy the rest day, and the next day you move on with it. You’re accountable to yourself, not a checklist. You miss the workout because you had a meeting for your job that allows you pay your mortgage, you’re not a slacker who can’t keep themselves disciplined. You eat CAFO meat because you’re out and hungry after a days adventure, not because you have no self control around food. You take less steps one day because you were honoring your energy levels and needed the down time. 

The pivot is essential, the plan is not. We can all sleep, eat and live perfectly, only in a perfect world. One without unexpected tasks, family, friends and general interruptions. It’s what happens next that matter. We can’t control life, but we can modulate our reaction to it. Celebrities with professional chefs can eat on plan 100% of the time because they have someone to plan and execute this task for them. (Unless you are a celebrity and then please, I would love to interview you for the blog lol). People who work from home can flex their day to make sure they never miss a workout, but you may not have that luxury. But for most of us, the unexpected should be expected; crises, change in economic status, schedules, routines. Much of this happens without input from us. What do you do when you need to pick up a child unexpectedly? Travel to see a sick family member? Work schedule changes to meet business needs? Do you know how to give yourself grace through a transition? Do you know how to be accountable without anger? Do you know how to negotiate without throwing in the towel? 

For many people, these are skills they can’t access yet. Move to night shift? Never go to the gym again because you can’t make it to your favorite class. Lose your meditation space to a friend in need staying in your spare room? Only meditate when no one is home. Do you go away for the weekend, miss your meal prep routine and eat out the entire week? 

Seventy-three days. Two hundred ninety two days. That’s the split for the year. That’s holidays, that’s birthdays, that’s hospital stays and bad days. It’s rainy days and snow days. It’s the buffer you need. Primal asks for progress, not perfection. Can you give Primal your progress? 

It wasn’t about the litter box. 

It’s not about a missed workout. 

It’s not about banana bread. 

It’s about you and your resiliency. 

It’s how you pivot. 

Do you have what it takes to pivot? 

That’s the practice you keep. 

This isn’t just about ‘health and wellness’, this bleeds into all areas of life. When a new after school activity pops up and changes your routine, does the laundry pile up? When there’s a road closure and you have to find a new way home, does your whole evening routine fall apart? When you go through a break up do you find yourself quitting a hobby you used to enjoy? 

That’s the root of the practice you keep. It’s the one you return to, not the one you’re beholden too. 

So are you ready to build a practice you keep? 

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