The Logic of Half-Arsing Your Way Out of a Slump

It’s easy to feel like you’re in a slump right now. There’s a global pandemic raging on, we’re headed into a recession, thousands are losing their jobs and if you live where I live, you’ve probably got a similar skin tone to Edward Cullen due to what feels like only seeing the sun about twice in one month.

When time like this hit, I often come back to this nugget of wisdom that I heard while I was at Uni:‘Half-arsed is better than no-arse’

This means that it’s better to do the bare minimum even if it falls short of the ideal than to not do it at all.

We can be so tough and critical of ourselves. We expect a lot from ourselves whether that to be having consistently high-quality workouts, to be fully focussed while working on our projects, or expecting ourselves to stick rigidly to a healthy diet. This is good but, when we fall short of these ideals even the slightest, we punish ourselves, indulge in some damning negative self-talk and feel defeated. The truth of the matter is we’re not always firing on all cylinders and we don’t have to be.

For me recently I had some health complications due to some medication I’m on, have had some big changes to adjust to at work, have had chronic neck pain and a foot injury so needless to say a lot of the practices I’m usually consistent with went on the backburner and I got myself into a bit of a funk. My meditation practice went from being 30-40 minutes to barely being able to sit and focus for 5 minutes. This was quite challenging as meditation is a huge part of my life.

Sitting for 5 minutes is still better than not sitting at all. I meditate so that I can be more kind and loving to myself as well as others, so the difference between doing 5 minutes of this practice and not doing it at all is huge. I identified as being a meditator who sat for 30-40 minutes and I decided 5 minutes was pointless, so I didn’t do it at all. I kept putting my sittings off until the next day. This turned into a vicious cycle where I felt more guilty for not doing it, and more frustrated at the general situation (which would have been eased by meditating).

 I lost a baseline meditation practice which ultimately made it harder to cultivate a regular one, I was achieving nothing regarding my meditation whereas if I was even taking 5 minutes, I would have experienced some levels of satisfaction. If I could have been kind to myself and done a ‘half-arsed’ job of meditating for 5 minutes a day, I would have racked up 35 minutes in the week. This would have been a hell of a lot better than not doing it at all.

This is not to say that you should settle for mediocrity, but to achieve anything there needs to be some consistency, a baseline level of performance to allow you to springboard you to where you would ideally like to be. No baseline equals no springboard- you will stagnant and regress, it’s as simple as that.

Your mental health is on a fluctuating spectrum and this is completely normal. It’s okay to find things difficult that you can usually do with ease. When this happens it’s important to meet yourself with compassion and do what you can manage until the time where you can perform your tasks with more ease. It’s important to remember that feeling shit leads to procrastination that leads to stagnation that leads to feeling even shitter. It’s a nasty cycle but it can be broken at any time you chose.

So, this week don’t compare what you do to how you did it in the past. Half-arsing is still progress and still positive habit building. Sometimes you have to meet yourself with where you are emotionally and that’s real self-love and that how you’re going to get through it.