Don’t Be Okay with Quitting

My husband has been in the SEAL teams for sixteen years. Over the ten years Steve and I have been married, I’ve heard great stories about his job. My very favorite, though, is a story from his days as a BUD/S student.

During the infamous “Hell Week,” the guys are intentionally sleep deprived and then made to accomplish physical tasks, usually in some form of competition.

One evening, late into “Hell Week,” the instructors told the students to get their boats and head out into the ocean. They needed to paddle to a specific buoy, loop around it, and then paddle back to the shore. As the officer in his boat, Steve was given the task of calling out commands to the rest of the guys onboard.

They headed out into the surf, and after they had been underway for a bit, Steve calls to his crew, “Around the gate. Around the gate!”

“Sir,” one of his crew members points out, “there is no gate.”

“Around the gate!” Steve insists. “Around the gate!” “Sir,” the crew member maintains, “we’re in the middle of the ocean. There is no gate.”

Suddenly Steve realizes his sleep-deprived eyes are creating a mirage in the middle of the ocean. “Yes, yes,” he changes commands, “continue straight ahead.”

And they paddle on.

This story perfectly illustrates how easy it is for us to get so worn down that all we perceive are the impediments.

“The only easy day was yesterday,” the guys say to each other in training. In other words, don’t expect things to go smoothly.

Some of us are trying to do some pretty big things in life: raise kids, earn a degree, hone a craft, change our relationship with food, stay married, become less codependent, recover from trauma, connect with our more intuitive self.

When we’re trying to lean into life, it’s very easy for impediments to present themselves out of thin air, telling us we must change course, or even abandon ship.

Some of us have become so tired and so sensitized that when an impediment shows itself—again, real or perceived—we’re done. We avoid stepping into the fray of life for fear of failure. We let anxiety convince us that we can’t manage difficult things. We choose to numb instead of engage. Soon we begin believing we’re not capable of handling the challenges life brings.

Perhaps it’s time to channel our inner Navy SEAL and get back in the game. Some days we need to sit down and rest. Some days we need to get up and ﬁght!

Some of us have tried and failed so many times we have lost trust in ourselves. One of the ways we build that trust back is by making manageable commitments to ourselves and following through. More than just accomplishment, the follow-through sends the message we’re worth fighting for and our contribution to the world counts.

Are you working on something big? Needing some momentum or traction? Why not start with one small, manageable commitment. Something you know you can get done. Then follow through. Do it. And then celebrate the doing of it.

You painted for a half hour this morning? You took the baby out for a walk? You wrote that difficult email? You embraced your body instead of punishing it today? You ﬁlled out the paperwork? You made something with your own two hands? Congratulations! You’ve got a little momentum to work off of. And that’s really something!

Life is going to hand us Hard over and over again. Here’s what you and I can do:

You make a pact with yourself, something manageable. And you keep that pact. You ﬁrmly treat yourself with gentleness. That’s the key. You love yourself too much to let yourself fade away. You channel that inner Navy SEAL and you tape the following mantra to your bath- room mirror: “The Only Easy Day Was Yesterday” and then you go get to work.

You do this because you care about being alive and awake in the world, about being conscious, about inhabiting your own life. You do this because you want to make some kind of small or large contribution, because you want to be whole.

You do this as a way to honor your true self.

Over time, you will look back at the body of work you’ve created, or the personal growth you’ve experienced, or the memories you’ve made with your children, or the connection you feel with your partner, or the incremental progress you’ve made professionally, and you’ll see that these small commitments and your follow-through have actually added up. Somehow, that inner Navy SEAL was able to rescue your hostage self from the captors of shame and fear and anxiety and self-pity.

Hooyah!

Just shows you what you can do when you get in touch with that warrior within.

We learn to believe in ourselves again when we face challenges with courage. We will not conquer everything in our path. We may not have perfect abs while going into battle, but we can still ﬁght. We can still push up against life a bit. We can still show up. We can still arise and put on our war paint!

Hey, life, I’m here. I’m not going to let you beat me. I’m not going to drift out to sea. Period. Even if the only easy day was yesterday. Bring. It. On.

And if it all goes sideways (because it will, at some point), I will take a nap or a hot shower and then I will come for you again. I will begin again. I will put on the war paint AGAIN. Hear me roar.

Whatever you want to get accomplished today, here’s to channeling your inner Navy SEAL. Sometimes in life the only easy day was yesterday. And yet, I believe we honor ourselves by getting to work even when—especially when—the opposition is rising up out of thin air.

Around the gate, dear friends. Around the gate!