16 - 110 % is a myth

110 % is a myth. It looks good on a poster and sounds good from a coach, but it isn't real. And if I’m not careful, it's unhealthy.

Don’t get me wrong, it can be an amazing motivator! When I read it, I imagine a deep-voiced army sergeant yelling, “You need to give 110%!” If it pushes me to do my best, give my best, live my best, then it is good. 

The problem arises when I have more than one thing in my life requiring my attention. The sergeant would tell me to block all of those things out and just focus on him. But what happens when I have several army sergeants. And they all want me to give 110% to THEM. They all want me to give more than all of me to them. Let’s say my job wants me to give 110%. My kids want me to give them 110%. Each of them. My husband. The house. My friend. We’re quickly getting to a total of 1000%. And some motivators would say, “Yes! Give a thousand percent!” 

But then I get burned out. How about you? Are you burned out?

When my daughter went away to college, she would be frustrated that there just weren’t enough hours in the day for everything that everyone wanted her to do. I’m not talking about social things, either. I’m talking about how every single professor wanted every single student to focus all of their attention on their class. 110%!

I remember as a child learning the concept of all and none. Pretty basic. If I am holding a basket that is empty, I have nothing in the basket. Yes, we can get all philosophical and say that nothing is ever EMPTY, it is just filled with different things. Like air. Or oxygen molecules. Or dust. Yeah, yeah, yeah...I get it. But on a basic level, the basket is empty. 

Now, imagine I pull a steaming, golden apple pie from the oven. I am holding a whole pie. If I decide I want to eat ALL of it, I will be eating 100%. I can’t eat more than all of it. The whole thing, every juicy apple, every bit of layered flaky crust, every spoonful of the guey goo will be eating all of it. All=100% There can’t be more than every bit. There can’t be more than every morsel. There can’t be more than all. All is all. All of the pie is 100% of the pie.

Now imagine that the pie is my life. I give a piece of pie to my work, a piece of pie to my family, a piece of pie to my friends, a piece of pie to errands, a piece of pie to do the laundry. Eventually, I am going to run out of pie. 

Maybe I have a thousand things I want to give pie to, so instead of a piece, each thing or person gets a bite. One bite. Or a crumb. Or, some people see that I have pie, but they get none. Because I have given all of it (100%, not 110%) away to others. Am I even saving anything for myself?

So what to do? How to not just survive, but thrive?

I need to learn how to perform triage.

When I go to the emergency room, I may be taken back quickly, or I may have to wait longer. That is because nurses perform triage, to see who needs to be seen more urgently. If a guy comes in with a bullet wound, he is going to be seen before the guy with strep throat. If a woman comes in having a heart attack, she will be seen before the woman with a stomach ache. It doesn’t mean the sicknesses that are seen second aren’t important, it means the first ones in each example are more critical. 

I need to learn how to do that in my life as well. Otherwise, I’m going to be running around like a crazy person, giving everyone a half-ass bite of my pie. 

When I was in highschool, I was trying to give 110% to every class, and 110% to every activity. I was running in circles, never able to give all of me to everything I was doing. I looked lazy because I didn’t give 110% to my English report. I appeared distracted because I didn’t give 110% to my Spanish club. I thought college would be better. But, of course, it wasn't. Surely, when I graduated and got a job, it would be better. But, of course, it wasn't. When I left the work force to stay home with my children, I thought that SURELY NOW it would get better. It didn't. 

There will always be things begging for ALL of my attention. As much as I would love to give all of me to everything, I can’t.

Each day, each hour of my day, I need to make a decision. What, of the thousand things that want my attention, are most critical? I choose the most important ones and divide my day between them. One hundred divided by the activities. No one activity gets 110%, or even 100%. Like a piece of pie, each activity gets less than 100%. 

Suppose I need to go to the grocery store and buy food for the week. If by some miracle, I’m able to focus all of my attention on the task at hand, I am still only giving 100% of the pie PIECE, not the entire pie. If I designate ¼ of my pie to making sure we have food in the house, I am giving 25% of my pie to that activity. I am not spending the entire day at the grocery store. It is still only one piece of the pie. I have other things to do, other people I need to talk to in a day. A trip to the grocery store is not a whole pie (all day, from the time I get up to the time I go to sleep) activity. 

If I decide to work out, I can't give 110% to that either. If I did, I would have nothing left for the rest of my day. I can give 100% of the PORTION of the pie, but not the whole pie.

Do you get what I am saying? It is impossible to invest 100% in EVERY single thing I do. 

Each day I wake up, the most I have to offer is one pie. One whole pie. 100% (not 110%) of a pie. And it has to be divided.

And to be completely honest and transparent, some days I wake up with less than 100%. I’m exhausted before the day begins. I wake up tired. On those days, my whole pie may only be 70% of a pie. And I have to divide 70% between the things that need done. And if I only had 4 major things to focus on, each activity would only get 17.5% (if I divided equally) instead of 25% because I started the day with less than a full pie. 

Thinking about it makes me more anxious and my energy becomes less and my pie gets smaller. 

So what to do?

For me, it’s acknowledging that I only have so much to give. It’s accepting that I can’t give 110% (or even 100%) to one thing. It’s understanding that we all have one pie for the day, and it has to be divided. I have to decide how I’m going to slice it up!

I also have to acknowledge and accept that sometimes an activity doesn’t get as big of a piece as I would like. I only have so much to give. I would like to spend hours and hours on a project to make it perfect, but there isn’t time. And I have other things to do. That’s ok. I can only give so much. Although I would like to delegate a bigger slice of pie, all I can do is invest 100% of the smaller piece. At the end of the day, it has to be enough.

I have the CHOICE to decide how to divide my pie. Even though there are things that REQUIRE a piece of pie on a given day (going to work, paying my bills), I still choose how big of a piece to give each thing. And I also can choose to eliminate certain activities to give more of a percentage to other things that I feel need more of my energy. 

I choose.

Even the things I don’t like, I can choose to give it a bite (half-ass it) or a decent percentage. 

I’m not a victim in my life. I have a certain amount of control over where I delegate my energy. 

I can choose to divide my pie into healthy portions, and be wholly present in those slices. I can decide that I am going to invest all of my designated energy into that activity. 100% of the piece of pie can be dedicated to that task.

Or I can choose to run around with a fork, giving everything a single bite. I can allow myself to be distracted by other things, when it isn’t time for those things. It’s my choice. 

Right now, I don’t want to invest limited time and energy into a thousand projects. I’m done doing everything in a rushed, maniacal manner. I’m choosing bigger pieces to fewer activities. It helps me focus on what I’m doing and not dread the next step. So tomorrow, instead of half of a pie, I can start the day with a whole.

A whole pie. A whole life. A whole me.