Choices, Choices: What to Do When What You Want Isn't on the Table?

The Dilemma…

My gym membership is coming to an end next month. I’ve had a great year, well thirteen months, since I took a trial month before joining for the year. I’ve been pretty consistent and I feel like I’ve found new ways of training that suit my body.

And now I’m at a crossroads.

What I really want to do is go deeper in one area, and with one particular type of training, and there’s no-one at my gym who teaches that. In fact there’s no-one in my whole town who teaches it.

The Disappointment…

A week ago I would have said that I know exactly what I want and it is isn’t available :( .

I did have another choice though; I was at a workshop two weeks ago with someone who does exactly what I want, but his gym is too far way to far for me to travel to (I knew I’d end up not going), and he was only taking online one-to-one clients. It didn’t feel like it was the alternative I was looking for.

So, there I was, a week ago, feeling like I had a choice between two things I didn’t really want, a bit like being in an ice-cream shop, and they’ve run out of y favourite flavour. I know it’s available somewhere, I just can’t get it here and now.

It’s become my job to ‘figure it out’, or to make do with something second best.

You’ll have your version, I’m sure, of where there’s some part of life, or some situation or dilemma, you feel it’s on you to solve. You, with your huge brain power and intellect, can’t solve a simple problem like this—shame on you!

Yeah, that’s how it feels to me sometimes, like I have to figure it out.

Or do I?

The Drive…

I love my gym, I love my Sunday weights’ class, I love the crowd there; it’s friendly and low-key, and I’ve had a great time. I could join again, but I want more.

Life often feels like this, right? We like our job but we think there’s more out there. The relationship’s good, but are we ‘settling’? There’s an elusive ‘something else’ that looks like the perfect solution.

And why shouldn’t we have exactly what we want?

I agree with that statement completely.

I tell my clients who struggle with under-performing staff, that they should have exactly the staff they want, I know I there’s no need to settle, no need to ‘make-do’, no need to feel dissatisfied with our circumstances.

However I don’t think ‘what we want’ is likely to be what we’re imagining.

For me, with my gym question, if you’d asked me last week, I would have easily describe that I want my favourite trainer at my current gym to be qualified in my favourite training method. That looked like the perfect flavour of ice-cream.

Coaches will tell you, ask for what you want! And I did (she wasn’t interested). That’s like asking someone to please do their job the way you think it should be done, because ‘you’re right and they’re wrong’, or telling hubby not to load the dishwasher that way because ‘it annoys me’. Creating ‘what I want’ isn’t the same as forcing someone to do something they’re not interested in just because it seems like a good idea to me.

I know enough, though, to know that whenever I’m pushing back against ‘what is’, and feeling like I have to ‘figure it out’, that I’m not allowing possibility to present itself.

Solutions show up when we see that we have the capacity to find what we’re looking for, when we trust ourselves completely, when we fall fully into the exploration, knowing that we don’t know what we want, how could we when we can only imagine a tiny fraction of what’s possible. But we’ll know it when we find it, so why don’t we let go of trying to create an imaginary version of what we think a perfect solution might look like, and play with possibility instead.

I took a step back.

OK, Cathy, it’s hands-off this for a minute. You have plenty of time before the membership expires (nothing like a made-up deadline to make you feel the pressure of the decision!), and you can decide to renew, or not, later.

The Deliciousness of the Diversion…

As soon as I stepped back, it occurred to me that it might be fun to go and visit a couple of other gyms in town. Really explore my assumption that there was no-one who could do exactly what I wanted. Maybe I was being too closed minded??

I didn’t go with a checklist, I didn’t go in a research frame of mind, like I was deciding and I had my list of criteria, I simply went to see what they were like; to explore with no purpose other than the exploration; to meet the people (and dogs, lovely Maple, who’s gym was, sadly, a bad fit for me); to get a ‘feel’ for the places.

I knew enough to know that I’d get some ideas and, even if I didn’t, it would be fun.

And it was.

And it also became pretty clear to me that I had lots of other choices. I could stay where I was and supplement with some personal training. I hadn’t done this up to now because the three classes a week I go to feel like enough, my body doesn’t want more, it just wants different.

I emailed a couple of people a bit further away to ask about flexible training, could we work something out that didn’t involve a membership or a lot of programme of training that was more than I wanted.

I got a great response from one of them. I could almost hear her enthusiasm jumping off the page, she had ideas, it felt like she knew exactly what I was looking for and she wanted me to come and check them out.

I did, no need to go into details (although it did involve a dog called Munchkin), and I knew my decision had arrived.

Dare I say it even feels like a better solution…?

Of course I won’t know how it plays out until it plays out but I’m excited about my new trainer and the world she’s opening up for me. And what could be better than that?

It’s like finding the mythical ice-cream flavour you didn’t know existed. Or, as hubby experienced recently, sitting at the table in the Chinese restaurant where you get served all those delicious dishes that aren’t on the menu.

The Decision…

And that’s how it is when we’re facing these very tricky decisions.

The decision only feels tricky because we don’t know. The solution hasn’t presented itself yet, and we can take the weight of ‘figuring it out’ ourselves, or we can get out and about, have a good time, treat the problem as a treasure hunt, and see what gold we find under the bracken.

I’m certain, if you feel like you’ve a difficult decision to make, that it simply means you’re stuck thinking it’s your job to figure it out.

I strongly suggest you put down this idea, that you take on the job of having fun and exploring, and I’ll bet a new idea comes to you.

It looks to me, in this situation, that there’s no decision to make, there’s simply a path to enjoy walking along until the obvious place to stop presents itself.

With love,

Cathy