When I was younger I used to think that the hardest part of my life was doing hard things. It was hard to motivate myself to finish all my school work. It was hard to work long hours. It was hard to speak empathetically when I was angry.
Then, as I got older the hardest thing became NOT doing hard things. It was hard to not work all the time so I could maintain meaningful relationships. It was hard to give up on a business that required a lot of effort and gave little return. It was hard to speak authentically when I was worried I might hurt someone.
Recently, a new challenge has emerged: simultaneously doing and not doing hard things. Today, I seek the balance between challenging myself and relaxing. Between growth and enjoying the person I am right now.
The first, and in some ways, hardest part of this effort was accepting that none of my principles were universally applicable. I can’t always support my friends. I can’t always work out everyday. I can’t always make decisions based on data.
The next step has been determining WHEN to apply my principles, and when to ignore them. Moderation is easy to say, but very hard to define.
While my quest for moderation will likely be a never ending journey, I’ve managed to develop a few heuristics, so far, which have been useful in guiding my decisions.
Minimize my goals.
The easiest things to moderate in my life have simple and obvious costs and benefits. I know I’ve eaten enough when I’m full. I know I’ve spent enough time with friends when I want to be alone. There have times in my life when I’ve eaten to gain or lose weight, or socialized to build a network. Those extra goals made moderation harder. They required additional analysis to decide whether the costs and benefits of my actions were balanced.
The good news is that most of my life tends to have more goals than are necessary. Moderation at work became easier after I stopped caring about having a glamorous office. Moderation for exercise became easier after I stopped caring about performance.
Reflection not preflection.
Sometimes I spend too much time thinking about the costs and benefits of my actions before I do them. Not only does that cause a lot of stress, it actually makes me worse at moderation. The feedback the world gives me is the best indicator for whether I’ve swung too far with any action, not the simulations I run in my head. Whether it’s pain in my body or a worried look on a friend’s face I can usually (but not always) tell if I messed up after an action has occurred. However, when I try to guess the results of an action beforehand I act out of habit, with less curiosity and will often overlook real world feedback. Moderation requires thought, but I find it’s best when it’s reflective thought— processing the known results of an action instead of predicting an outcome and training a response ahead of time.
Trust my body.
Sometimes after working out I feel sore. Sometimes after a difficult conversation with a friend I feel bad. In these situations I often start to wonder if I’ve made some terrible mistake. Have I permanently injured my body? Have I permanently ruined a friendship?
The reality is my body will be a pretty good indicator for when the cost of an action has become too high. My ankle will tell me when it’s broken vs. sprained. My stomach will tell me when a friend is really upset vs. just perturbed. My heart wil race when I’ve really put myself in danger vs. just done something mildly dumb.
Of course, there are some situations in which my body’s physical response can’t be used as feedback. However, in a surprising number of situations I’ve found that if my body responds unusually or intensely to an action, it means I’ve gone too far and need to moderate. Otherwise it’s a good bet I’m ok.