Just Dance: Silencing the Overachiever

I live in a culture that is very results oriented. We try to quantify everything into measurable units so we can compare them to reams of data and decide how a given activity, person or organization is performing. This inevitably leads to goal setting.

Helpful goals have to be measurable in some way, otherwise they are more like vague dreams (which in my opinion definitely have their place in life.) But the problem with incessant goal setting, whether they are specific or vague, is that they have a way of making life a giant to-do list. Success is determined based on how many things got crossed off and the quality of those items.

I’m a natural list person who likes to achieve, focusing on excellence and project completion. As you can imagine, this isn’t always compatible with life as a stay at home and homeschool mom. I’ve always been an overachiever, something I’ve had to moderate since I’ve become a parent. Because try as I might, I cannot control my children, so there is no such thing as an overachieving parent (unless you have a naturally compliant also overachieving child, but I have a feeling even that has an expiration date).

So instead I made my goal setting about my writing, my self-improvement and my fitness, things I could control, and I frequently fail miserably. I found myself trying to cram as much as possible into each moment. Whether I had a good day or a bad one, had mostly to do with how I had made progress towards my goals. Did I write? How many words, on which projects? Anything uploaded, submitted or published? What did I eat? Was in the “right foods”? Did the scale give me the news I wanted? Did I get a workot? Did I feel strong and energized or weak and discouraged?

I could go on, but the summary is, my happiness was almost entirely defined by how I had performed against my ideals. Even quality time invested in my kids or my marriage was, at minimum, mentally noted for future tabulation. I realized I no longer knew how to relax and just live.

Around the time I hit my early thirties, something startling happened. Time started going faster. I suddenly found the days, even the bad ones, mostly flying by at top speed. The calendar pages turned quicker than I even remember before and I found myself thinking that perhaps I had more days behind me than ahead.

I should have felt accomplished, because despite my inability to achieve up to my impossible standards, I had, in fact, done a great deal. But there was little satisfaction. I felt like I was just checking things off and holding my breath for the next big thing. Plan the vacation, save for the vacation, pack for the vacation, unpack from the vacation, recover from the vacation and start planning for the next one. This is how I approached every event in my life.

When I was taking ballet classes, my teacher used to say you need to know the choreography so well that you can let go and dance it full out without thinking too hard.

Some of the most memorable dance performances in my life have been when I was able to stop thinking ahead to the next movement, trust my body’s muscle memory and fully dance. Yes, it takes more work to do this because I need to be willing to put in the time to really know the steps ahead of time. But it also means being willing to release control and give yourself over to the music and the beauty.

I’m not sure how to do that. I still need to do all the required tasks of living, and those may still need lists. Maybe it means doing less, and doing it well. Allowing myself to do something for the sheer joy of it and not worrying if I’m being productive every second of every day. Choosing joy even if a day didn’t meet my standards. Embracing the music of my life and my family without worrying so much about what comes next.

So for today, if only for this moment, I’m not setting a goal, or trying to achieve anything at all, except to let go and live.