I write here to make sense of what my body is doing in midlife and how that changes how I work, move, and think.
If you want to keep thinking about this with me, you’re welcome here.
Allowing Myself to Be Bad at Exercise
I recorded this episode after something small but meaningful happened during a workout. I didn’t plan for it to become an episode. I just noticed that a familiar pattern had shifted, and I wanted to celebrate it.
What surprised me wasn’t the movement itself. It was how I related to it.
The mindset shift
I’d been doing a short workout. Five minutes of barre. My knees were still healing. My arms were shaky. My coordination was off. I was clearly not good at what I was doing.
Normally, that’s the moment where frustration shows up. Where I start negotiating with myself about whether this is worth it. Whether I should be doing something else. Something I’m better at.
Instead, a different thought landed.
“I sucked at this but it’s fun.”
That realization felt like a quick climb. Relief showed up almost immediately. Not because the movement felt easier, but because the pressure dropped. I wasn’t trying to be good at it. I wasn’t trying to prove anything. I was just moving.
That alone changed the experience. It didn’t suddenly make exercise enjoyable or effortless. It just removed the rule that said I had to be competent for it to count.
But learning curves don’t stay steep.
They flatten out.
Perfectionism turned into my hamster wheel
Looking back, the plateau has always been where things fell apart for me.
I’d start exercising with energy and intention, then push too hard too quickly. I believed progress had to be visible and fast to be real. If I couldn’t do something well, I assumed I shouldn’t do it at all.
That belief sent me into the same cycle for years. I’d start strong. I’d overdo it. I’d get hurt or exhausted. And then I’d stop. Not dramatically. Just quietly, until exercise became another thing I used to do.
The plateau was always where I quit.
Lately, my movement looks very different. Short sessions. Low intensity. Fascia work. Foot exercises. Slow arm movements. Finger exercises with resistance bands. Things that didn’t look like exercise in the way we’re usually taught to recognize it.
Most days, nothing impressive happened.
I’m still awkward.
I’m still slow.
I still feel behind an imaginary version of myself who never got injured, never got sick, never had to rebuild.
Some days, I wonder if it even counts.
That question lingered longer than I expected. Instead of answering it right away, I let it sit. I noticed how often I equated value with intensity, skill, or visible progress.
I noticed how uncomfortable it felt to stay in something unimpressive without trying to fix it.
It turns out that staying on the plateau turned out to be harder than pushing.
All this time I’ve needed patience, not effort. I needed to tolerate being bad at something without immediately turning that into a reason to quit.
Discomfort leads to growth (eventually)
The progress came quietly, after I stopped trying to force it.
Not as a breakthrough.
Not as a transformation.
But as trust.
Instead of asking whether I was good at the movement, I started asking different questions.
Did I feel more connected to my body afterward?
Did I feel grounded?
Did moving help me navigate the rest of the day with a little more ease?
What I realized was that this wasn’t really about exercise anymore. It was about function. About remembering that I’m a physical being, not just a thinking one. About moving without trying to optimize the movement or perform it well.
my Body turned out to be capable of more than I thought, once I stopped demanding it prove itself. And even if it never becomes good at certain movements, that’s okay. Doing them still matters.
Sometimes the win isn’t improvement.
It’s continuation.
We fall to learn how to walk. And we keep falling, in different ways, throughout our lives. Learning doesn’t end just because we’re adults. Neither does being bad at things.
Recording the episode helped me celebrate this shift. Writing this afterward helped me understand why it mattered.
So I’m allowing myself to be bad at exercise.
And I’m allowing that to be enough.
I’m curious about you.
What’s something you’re bad at but still doing anyway?
What’s something you stopped because you thought you weren’t good enough at it?
You can reply here, message me on Substack, or find me on Instagram or YouTube. That’s the conversation I want to keep going.
See you next week,
Steph
