It’s Time to Start Funding Our “Life” Savings Account

Project 365, Day 37

Are you good or do you need one more lap for your feel-good savings account?” My physical therapist, who I see twice a week these days, started implementing this idea of a “feel-good savings account” with me this week. And the more I think about it outside the walls of therapy, the more I realize, this is a strategy we all need to be using in other areas of our lives.

For a little context, before I continue: After a particularly hard set of exercises, or after torturous pressure sessions on my spine, he instructs me to get up and walk back and forth across the gym. The first lap always feels the same: a nightmare. There’s no way walking is going to pull that discomfort from my body. But by the time I make it back the third or so time, I feel 80-90% better. I’d typically stop there. Surely, 100% is not possible, so just shy of great is my threshold. Good enough. Earlier this week, he pushed me to keep going. “Another few for the savings account.” The goal was to get to at least 110% (a figure that, yes, I know isn’t real but stay with me), so the next session of torture has a bit of a buffer.

That day when I got back home, I was committed to walking around a bit longer than I normally would before sitting down and pecking away at my keyboard. “For the savings account” I’d say out loud. And you know what? That feel-good body savings account is very real. And if it’s real for my body, it has to be real for my life, yes?

I don’t know about you, but I hover in that 80-90 percentile for most things. 80% well-rested. 80% content with the outcome of something. 80% pleased with myself for getting 80% of the way with something. Heck, 80% satisfied with what I’m eating. I mean…where does it end? Why do I feel like 100% somehow is not worth my time, my effort? Is it that I don’t think I’m worthy of it? That I don’t feel like I deserve that 100%? Let alone 110%? I find this phenomenon quite common in other women. As women, we’ve convinced ourselves that we have to walk through life with just a little bit of martyrdom; sacrificing a bit of ourselves for the sake of others, even if “others” means literally no one. If I sacrifice that 20 or 30% of pleasure/satisfaction/feel-good savings account, then I’m not being greedy. I’m self-less. I’m saving it for someone else to have. What is that about?!? Drinking 2/3 of a cup of water, then throwing the rest down the sink doesn’t mean someone else is drinking it. It means now NO ONE gets it, including you.

While I will say that the “good enough” philosophy has helped to move me away from some perfectionist tendencies, there’s a big difference between “good enough” in mundane, menial, not very important things, and living life with a tank that only ever reaches 80%. We’re not lithium-ion batteries. We are allowed to charge up ALL the way, even after irresponsibly plugging in for just a few percentage points to keep going. We need to charge up all the way, or else we get comfortable as that 80% slips into 70%…60%…oof…50%. Battery failure alert, alert, alert. There are no replacement batteries, my friends.

Having high expectations for yourself or your life needs to not feel gluttonous. When you’re operating at 100%, dare I say 110%, you are your best you. Why should we allow ourselves to fall short of that? I don’t mean this in an overachiever way. I mean that in what we want out of our lives, how we live our days, what we accept for ourselves. If ignoring those text messages or phone calls to say you’re going to take a quiet, peaceful bath in your own thoughts transfers funds into your feel-good savings account, do it. If you need 10 more minutes on that lunch break to get to 100% mental clarity (and you won’t get written up…I’m not liable for your employment hahaha), do it. Order dinner in multiple nights in a row to reset your cooking fatigue to a place it feels enjoyable again? Guess what I’m saying? DO IT.

The world deserves you at your 100%. You deserve yourself at 110%. You deserve a buffer, you deserve a feel-good savings account that’s not in the negative all the time. I personally feel like I owe all of myself to everyone all the time, when in reality, I owe all of myself to MYSELF. Feed yourself first. Save yourself first. It’s not selfish, it’s self-less. It’s self-less to give first to yourself so that you can operate at 100%…and then some.

I hope you go forth today and “do another few laps for the savings account” that is yourself and your life. I’m sure going to try. Here’s to 110%.

See you tomorrow, friends.