episode 227: how to know if you’re letting yourself off the hook
Structure and flexibility.
We always think we have to choose.
You're either a planner or you're go-with-the-flow. But what if the magic actually lives in the middle?
In this episode, I’m breaking down:
Why structure without flexibility will eventually burn you out
Why flexibility without structure will leave you spinning your wheels
How these two things work together to create the change you’re looking for
What this actually looks like with food, with exercise and across everyday life.
Whether you're trying to move your body more, eat better, or just get unstuck, this episode will tell you exactly how to start going after the changes you want to make.
Struggling to find the balance with structure and flexibility? Book a Power Hour Coaching session.
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227
[00:00:00] Hi everyone. I'm double checking my mic. It is not on mute. Some of you may have caught last week when I was recording last week's episode or two weeks ago, uh, depending when this airs about tanning. I recorded the entire episode with the microphone on mute. Now, I've done that before, but I'm never an entire episode.
I've realized that a couple minutes in. This was the entire episode. Uh, so that really sucked. Um, two hundred and twenty six, two hundred twenty episodes in. I've been doing this for. Four and a half years and still make mistakes. So interpret that, do it. That what you will. Right. We still go back to doing things.
We're careless, we forget, we don't check in, um, even when we've been doing stuff a really long time. So I'm in one of those places where I have a few different podcast ideas in my notes, but I'm gonna go with something today. That I posted a story about, right? Today's, um, Tuesday, May 6th. I'm not sure when this one's gonna air yet.
I have to decide, but it's gonna be within like one to two weeks. And I [00:01:00] was talking about the fact that this morning. I was kind of scheduled to go to the gym and do a strength workout, and I really, really did not feel like it for a couple of different reasons. And so I ended up, I decided to do, um, a, a weighted vest, walk on my treadmill instead, and I do at least one of those a week sometimes too.
So I would've done that workout on another day. I kind of like switched the days of the workouts. And when I posted about it on Instagram, um, I talked about this idea of structure and flexibility and when I started, sometimes I just get ideas for things and I, I think about these concepts a lot, but as I was writing it out, I'm like, oh my God, this needs like a bigger space to kind of live and breathe.
So that's kind of why I wanted to sit down and, and record a podcast about it. Right. So I think we tend to think of structure and flexibility as being opposites that they are kind of on two ends of a, or on opposite ends of a spectrum. And I get why we think that, um, because structure [00:02:00] is kind of having boundaries.
It's having rules, it's doing certain things at a certain time. It's knowing your place and flexibility is like being go with the flow and let's change things up and let's. See what happens, and let's be easygoing. And in some ways they feel like they don't go together. And I think especially when we think about food and exercise and all the stuff we talk about here, I think we have a hard time seeing these things as being related.
And yet they are. They're not opposites. They're actually companions and one relies on the other. And I think that really gets to the crux of. Change And the work that we do here and the work that, that you are doing, um, is really figuring out the relationship and kind of the push pull of structure and flexibility and how one kind of allows and supports the other one.
Right? So this workout situation this morning was a great example of this, right? So structures that I do, I think it's like five workouts a week, like three strength, [00:03:00] one treadmill walk, and one hit exercise. Um, and I usually end up hitting, I would say most weeks I end up doing four out of those five.
Sidebar on. That's what consistency is. Um, and so the structures it, but I have them scheduled, right? 'cause I have an app. And so I have them in, they're scheduled by day every week. And I go in at the beginning of the week and I put them in on the days. I'm gonna plan to do them. That changes. It changes quite a bit, but that structure is there.
I know how many workouts, I know specifically what they are because I pay a train a trainer, my friend Gina, to program that for me. So I don't have to think about that, and I plan out when they are going to be in advance. That is structure I. The flexibility part comes in when, like today, I really didn't feel like it, so I did something else, so I gave myself that wiggle room.
I didn't say Fuck it, I'm not gonna do a workout at all. But I had the flexibility to swap things around, and so I'm able to find that flexibility because I have the structure, right? If I didn't already have those workouts. Kind of pre-plans in advance if I didn't know [00:04:00] what they were gonna be or when they were gonna be, then it's just sort of like I wake up on a Tuesday morning and I'm like, oh, I've got all this flexibility.
I could do whatever I want. And then it feels like very, just like you're kind of floating and spiraling through space and it's like, okay, what happens? And yeah. There's also certainly a personal component to this where some people do a little bit better with more or less of one or the other. But the reality is we all as humans, need and require both.
There's not a human who needs only structure or only flexibility. We need both. And. You know, acknowledging that and starting to pay attention to where you have too much of one and not enough of the other is a really helpful exercise, and I think can give you a lot of insight into places that you are struggling with and where you consistently struggle to make changes or be consistent or get the outcomes that you want.
Right. Let's talk about food as another example of this, right? So. This is like a great example around like a diet, [00:05:00] right? You're like, I wanna lose weight. I'm gonna follow a meal plan. I'm gonna do this program. And the program maps out for you. It gives you a shopping list, it gives you meal plans, it gives you.
A ton of structure. Lots and lots and lots of structure, and that feels really good. 'cause you're like, oh my God, they told me what to do. I don't have to think about it. I know what I'm supposed to eat and when I'm supposed to eat it and I'm good. Well, what happens when you either don't get to the store or they're out of that thing, or you have to go out to eat, or you're really sick of eating that thing for like the fourth time this month?
What do you do? Well, you need some flexibility, and this is where diet programs fail because you don't know how to figure that out, right? They don't give that to you. They don't suggest those types of things in most cases, and you haven't yet cultivated that skillset. So it's like, yeah, have some structure in place, but build in the flexibility, right?
So here's, here's what that would look like, kind of from a, like a, like a coaching standpoint of. Um, let's say, you know, you're trying to work on eating more protein, [00:06:00] right? You wanna work on weight loss, I'll, I'll stay within that theme, right? And we know that protein intake is going to play a huge role in that because protein is filling, which therefore, um, helps mitigate snacking and makes it a lot easier for you to eat smaller portions of more calorie dense foods, right?
So protein is not only filling, but it's also very nutrient dense and not very calorie dense. Unless you're eating like super fatty cuts of beef. But we'll set that aside. Um, and so we're gonna use that, right? We know we're gonna use protein and we're gonna say, okay, I'm gonna work on getting a hundred grams of protein a day.
And not everyone goes in with a gram goal. And you do not have to do that. Just this is right. This is just an example, right? It's not customized to you. If you want that, we can, we can work together. But giving you examples so you can start to think about how can I apply this to myself, right? So you wanna work on weight loss.
You know the protein's important. You set some structure in place, a hundred grams a day. Um, now. [00:07:00] Within that structure, there's flexibility, right? Some people do really well. Dividing the, dividing that up evenly over the course of like your three meals. Some people maybe are only eating two meals a day and a smaller snack.
Some people do really well with eating, really front, loading a lot of protein earlier in the day, and then having a little bit later in the day. This is where things get personal and you have to experiment and see what works for you. You have to give yourself flexibility within that structure. If you say, okay, a hundred grams of protein a day, that's 35 grams of protein at every single meal, right?
Give or take. That might work for you. It might not work for you, and I can guarantee you it probably won't work for you every single day, even if it does work for you. Generally, you need to have flexibility to adapt that for the days where that isn't going to happen. You have to know how to work with that.
You need flexibility and so. This is like that, that push pull, that ebb and flow, whatever, like analogy, whatever, whatever it, um, language you wanna use is essential. [00:08:00] And so I offer you the opportunity now to think about an area of your life where you are struggling, right? And it could be within like food or exercise, but it could also be in a relationship or with work or a hobby or making time to do certain things.
How much structure are you applying to that thing? How much or how little structure and how much, or how little flexibility are you applying? And are you noticing that you are really far on one end, meaning a ton of structure or no structure, a ton of flexibility or no flexibility. And does that start to give you some insight and a little bit of direction into how, how can I adapt this?
How can I adjust the amount of structure? How can I adjust the amount of flexibility so that those two things work together to give myself the support that I need in order to make progress right there? Of course, there are many reasons why we might not be progressing with something. This is a big one.
Right. Another big one is that you're trying to do too much too [00:09:00] soon, which sometimes can also be a byproduct of structure. Like if we put way too much structure in place and it feels overwhelming, that can feel like too much too soon, right? There's not enough flexibility there. And so another important point I wanna bring up here that I feel like people might, might, I think tend to think of around flexibility is like, I'm going too easy on myself.
I'm letting myself off the hook, right? If I don't have the structure in place, it's too many decisions and I'm just gonna say, fuck it and I'm not gonna like stick with it. I hear that. I totally hear that. Um, and I think it's, it's important, helpful to understand that being flexible is not inherently letting yourself off the hook.
It's acknowledging. In some ways, where am I pushing myself too hard and where am I not pushing myself maybe enough? And being really honest about that. Um, right, because flexibility is not just about saying, oh, I'm just gonna skip the workout today, or Fuck it, I'm not gonna have any protein. That's not flexibility.
Flexibility is finding a way to live within that structure, but approaching it from a different way. Right? Like going back to today's [00:10:00] example, um. I didn't say, fuck it, I'm not gonna do any workout. I did a different workout that kind of fit my mood and my schedule better. Right. With a protein, it's like, okay, I'm working on getting a hundred grams a day and normally most days I get, I do, I try to get like 30 to 40 grams at each meal, but today I've got like a breakfast meeting and I can't, so I'm gonna like grab a chomps stick on the way out the door, or I'm gonna bring an extra snack for the middle of the afternoon that's more, that's has more protein in it.
Right. It's not saying, I'm not going to do the thing. It's about how can I maybe get this thing done in a slightly different way. I think that's really the key there with flexibility. How can I approach this with, um, just a different perspective? How can I get this thing done? I'm repeating myself, but that's okay.
How can I get this same thing done but in a different way? Maybe it's at a different time or it's with a different, um, food or, um, I think you, you kind of get my point. It's trying to look [00:11:00] at things with not such a, a laser focused, narrow minded view of this is the only way to do that thing, because that is almost never true.
Um, you have to figure out a way to get that thing done that meets your needs. Um, so again, flexibility is not saying, oh, it's fine if I didn't do that, it's fine. I don't have to do that. It's fine, it's fine. No, that's not what flexibility is Once in a while. Yeah, sure. But flexibility is being able to approach something or being able to figure out how to live within your structure, having multiple ways to get the thing to accomplish your structure.
I don't know if that makes sense, but. Having more than one way in to get something done right, you decide what you're gonna do. That's kind of your structure. Having different ways to get that thing done is kind of your flexibility. So again, notice where what's, what's feeling challenging in your life right now, that you are not making progress, you are not moving forward.
You're kind of finding [00:12:00] yourself stuck in a spiral where you're circling back around to where you've been. You feel like nothing is changing. Can you look at it through this lens of structure and flexibility and see if there's an opportunity there to maybe make a shift. Maybe there's too much or not enough of one or the other and see what happens.
I'd love to hear about it. If you notice something, reach out, or if you're not sure and you're trying to work your way through it, send me a note. Send me a dm. I am literally always here on the other side of these podcasts, on the other side of the, these emails. I'm obviously like a human and I respond to everything.
I am a business of one. I don't have a staff, I don't have a virtual assistant. It is me. You will always get me. Um, and I love connecting with you and making this a little bit more interactive versus like, you know, podcasting is in some ways like very one-sided. So thank you so much for listening and um, I'll be back of course, as always, next week.