Know Your "Why"

And rethink your motivations

Photo by Emily Morter on Unsplash

At this January’s residency, the theme I chose was “Know your ‘why’”. We have residency in January, because that’s when no one else is on campus, but doing so invites certain existential conundrums. After all, we’re inviting people who are aspiring to something (an MFA, to finish a novel, etc.) to all get together shortly after the dreaded Resolution Period, during which they may have spent hours or days agonizing over All The Things They Need To Do To Be Better Humans Who Don’t Suck Anymore. We’re basically inviting them to make writing part of this process of self-scourging.

Here’s my hot take: resolutions are turds. I spent decades of my life making the resolutions everyone makes. I would have a goal I thought I needed to achieve and I would come up with a combination of vague schemes and ridiculous strategies. Because the particular poison I was forced to imbibe from a young age was diet culture, they inevitably involved weight. Pretty much every year, I’d decide I was going to BE THIN, or “the vague scheme.” What does thin mean, after all? Was it a number, or a size, or a thigh gap? Other times, I would be more specific and make it a specific goal weight. That seemed concrete, but the number was 100% pulled out of my keister. Was it obtainable or realistic or even healthy? Who knows! But there it was, in my brain—my goal! From there would come “the strategy.” I’d be like, “well, I have to lose roughly 5,000 pounds AND I have to change the fundamental shape of my entire corporeal form (maybe grow seventeen inches?), so that will require I work out every day for 15 hours.”

In other words, I’d not only want to become a different human than the human I am, I thought I could get to be a different human by, you know, being a different human—ideally a human who could bend time and work out 15 hours in a 45 hour day.

There was so much wrong with this, in retrospect. The biggest issue, I finally learned, was that “thin” is a goal based on a set of values that weren’t mine! They’d been foisted on me and I obediently carried them around like a sucker for well over half of my life.

This is why so many therapies (like ACT) start with identifying one’s actual values. And this is hard! It takes a lot of time and self-reflection to sort through what you truly think is important—what brings you joy, or pleasure, or contentment, or gratification, or a genuine thrill—and what you simply believe you should be doing, to be whatever version of success was taught to you.

Despite what I was taught, I don’t want to live in an entirely superficial world, nor do I want to live in a world in which beauty is limited to one ideal. Ideologically, I feel this way. Practically, I also know that “beauty,” as our society defines it, is rooted firmly in white supremacy, patriarchy, capitalism, ageism, etc. So why was I torturing myself to fit a societal norm that I didn’t, myself, value? (I mean, we all know why, but seriously, why???)

The thing about these stories we carry that aren’t ours is that they’re like water. They get into everything—insinuating themselves into all of our mental crevices. For example, I knew I loved how it felt to publish books. And I associated that with a story about success that I carried, one you can’t help carry as an American, raised in an aspiring middle-class family. I believed that I loved publishing books because I loved SUCCESS. And, sure, success was fun. The money, especially, was great. I didn’t not like success, in the same way that I enjoy a chef’s flourish on a dish I know I like, anyway.

But, when I really dug down into why I loved publishing my books so much—it had very little to do with success or money. What I loved was the community. I made some amazing friends through publishing, and publishing allowed me to see them a few times a year, at conferences, etc. Sure, the money was relevant, in that it did mean I could take more trips, to visit these people I cared about. But the money was really a tool. Community was why I loved publishing because connection and community are some of my true values.

And this is important. When you understand *why* something is important to you, you can use your values to help you get where you really want to go.

Understanding that my values around physical appearance weren’t mine meant that I could look at my relationship to the things I’d done solely to chase thinness or beauty. These were things that I’d tortured myself with—namely, diet and exercise. Diet is a whole ‘nother story and still is a lot of work (Intuitive Eating, FTW!), but exercise was really straightforward. I’ve always loved working out and moving my body. As you know, I love dancing, badly! I also love walking. And I love love love love picking up heavy objects, and putting them down again. I love all sorts of things, yet I had made myself not love them by associating them with an impossible goal. No amount of (badly) dancing or weight lifting will make me tall and slender, obviously. Therefore, in this Mad Hatter equation, I was constantly disappointed in my efforts.

But all of this changed when I applied my values to exercise. Taking care of myself became a priority, because it supports some really important values I hold. I am a better partner and a better friend when I’m happy, obviously, and exercise makes me happy (it makes everyone happier, fyi, because BRAINZ). I want to be a GREAT friend and partner, that’s a value of mine, and exercise helps me be that better person.

I also want to age as well as I can. I want to get up and visit friends when I’m old, and I want to be able to volunteer, and be connected to things. And yes, I also want to age well so I can be independent, because I do value independence, despite knowing I need to keep a gimlet eye on this particular value.

Anyway, figuring this out means that for the past year I’ve been more dedicated to my fitness than I’ve ever been in my life. For while I’ve always worked out, there would be lulls, usually when I was really disappointed with my “progress” toward what I couldn’t see was an impossible goal. Or I’d be really unrealistic about how much I should do, and I’d burn myself out or injure myself. Nowadays, I work out almost every day, but in a way that’s sustainable and reasonable, and I do it to strengthen my lil heart and give my brain a lil boost of happy juice and to feel strong (another value!).

All of that said, however, I warn you that this isn’t a hack. I feel like a lot of these sorts of newsletter or essays or books turn it around and say “and by doing this thing that’s NOT the thing, I got the thing, TOO!” Spoiler alert: I’m still not tall and slender. If anything, I’m sturdier. Even more fit to be hitched to a plow. I might be ask to pick up the runway and move it a few inches, but I’ll never be asked to walk it. That said, nowadays I relish this idea! I’ve come to love taking up space, because one of my values is making space for others. If I take up space, I can hold out a hand and pull someone else in. We can take up space. And we can pull other people in, till there’s a big crowd of people who haven’t typically been encouraged to take up space, all taking up a fuck ton of space.

All of that space is gorgeous. And I got there by recognizing I’d been carrying a lot of shit I didn’t need to carry, and it was holding me back. So take a moment to think about what you don’t need to be carrying, and how you might let it go. xoxoxo