157 | When Discipline Turns Dysfunctional - 3 Signs Pushing Harder Is No Longer Wise

When Discipline Turns Dysfunctional

3 Ways to Know When to Push, Pivot, or Let Go

Discipline is not always wisdom, and pushing harder is not always leadership.

In this episode, Amy Ramsey breaks down how to tell when discipline is producing growth and when it has crossed into dysfunction, burnout, or performance driven striving. Through a real life story and practical coaching insight, Amy shares three ways to discern whether it is time to push through, pivot, or let go.

You will learn how alignment, impact, and motive reveal whether a goal still serves your season and why wisdom and discernment matter more than pressure and hustle.

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Join Amy’s free Facebook community at amyramsey.com and learn more about AccelerateHer, a 90 day faith-fueled, science supported coaching experience, at amyramsey.com/90days.

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Transcript

From Bragging To Quitting 75 Hard

SPEAKER_00 0:46

I was called a failure this week. A failure. And the reality is that I quit the 75 hard challenge that I was kind of bragging about in the last podcast. I quit. And let me tell you, no regrets. I'm going to share with you a couple of things in this podcast. But that me making that decision was one of the most disciplined decisions I could have made. And I cannot wait to unpack what happened because I posted about this on social media. Andy Frisella, show enough, called me a failure when I didn't log in the next day. It's fine. It's fine. I want to share with you how I got to that decision and why it was so important. And I want you to be able to do the same thing with your goals. What surprised me was the post on Facebook that I had, so many people commented on it and it resonated with them so much. So by the end of this episode, you're going to understand how to discern between true discipline and when it becomes dysfunction and how to compet confidently decide when to push through on your goal, how to pivot, or just to straight up let go because you know what? The struggle is real. I know you, you're listening to this, and you move forward in your life with a spirit of excellence. You're the one who does what you say you're going to do. That's who you are. It's in your character, it's in integrity. And you know what? Sometimes there's a time to re-evaluate, and we're going to be unpacking that. I've got three things I really want you to think about, but let me tell you what happened. What happened was I was doing the 75 Hard Challenge. If you've never heard about it before, it's a challenge. It's absolutely free. It's by a guy named Andy Frisella. I've done this challenge before. It is like the ultimate reset. It is hard and it's meant to be hard on purpose. It's about mental toughness. It's really not so much about trying to get in shape, but you will just because of what you have to do. So here's how the challenge works: it's 75 days, and you can anybody can do it. You can grab the app if you want it. And for 75 days, you agree to do a set of tasks every single day, and there's no excuses. You can have zero excuses, and you have to complete them every day on the app. So here they are. Two 45-minute workouts. One is mandatory outside in the elements. It can't be like in your carport or something like that. It's got to be in the elements. Drink a gallon of water, read 10 pages of personal development, take a progress photo, follow a diet, no cheats, no alcohol. All right. That's the challenge. It's hard. It's meant to be hard. I completed this challenge successfully in 2022. And I'm just going to say there's a lot of bragging rights that goes along with completing. It's like running a half marathon or a marathon. It's like, yes, I did that. It felt so good. I felt, I was so proud of myself for practicing that discipline and that self-control. And man, it was so hard when I did it in 2022. But I felt like what I thought when I made this goal was this will keep me aligned to my health and wellness because it's going to force me to go for that walk every single day, which I already do, but it's going to get, it's going to help me to do that and then to keep up with my workouts. I knew that was going to be my hardest part of this challenge were the two 45-minute workouts. But what I did not understand is how much that time was going to eat into what I needed to be doing. That was a bigger priority. My bigger priority is the Worthy Woman Summit, which is coming up in March. It is such an incredible event. I would love to invite you to the summit. The speakers, the praise team, the exercises, the events, the keynotes that are planned are remarkable. I'm telling you, but it takes every bit. It demands my time and my energy so that it is excellent. And that is my goal. My number one goal. My number one goal is that that summit is excellent. Not perfect, but I have to do a lot of preparation to make that happen. Lots of communications, lots of meetings, lots of details, lots of computer time. Okay. When I would be walking or exercising, an hour and a half, mind you. Yes, I'm getting up early. I'm doing it earlier in the morning. Yes, I am. My time management was increasing. So I did the 75 hard challenge for 20 days. And by this first week, it was hard. I anticipated that. I pushed through. Second week, I was getting more of a rhythm and it was going to be okay. And I kept pushing through. It was the third week that I started to struggle with getting my time management in place, but still not having enough time. And that was where things started to break down. Have you ever had one where your face is peeling? You look like a snake and shedding all of the flakes of skin. If you get a chemical peel, heads up, do not wear a black turtleneck because it looked so nasty. I had all that skin on my black turtleneck. Anyway, okay, I digress. Your skin is so sensitive. Listen, I was pushing through. It was so cold. I was pushing through, knowing I was not supposed to be out in the elements. I don't know what I was thinking. I wasn't thinking when I got the chemical pill. It never even occurred to me that, oh, I have a mandatory 45-minute outside workout. My face is bleeding because it's so chapped and it's hurting so bad. But I kept pushing through because by golly, it's my goal. I'm going to stick with it. That's what I do. I keep my word. I keep my goals, right? But I'm really realizing the struggle and the crux of time, the time issue that I'm facing. Oh man, I'm like, okay, this is really starting to feel out of alignment, but I didn't have words around it. And I want you to think about your own goal right now. What goals do you have? I'm just going to start asking you a few questions. And so this is about my goal, but I want you to be thinking about your goals. Are there any goals that you have right now that feel out of alignment with what matters most, where your heart and soul are really fixed upon right now? What you feel like God's calling you to. So this is more than just challenging you because I've got another goal right now, not to muddy the waters here. I've got another goal right now that is challenging me, that's stretching me, that I really don't like. And that is that I'm counting my macros. Oh, I don't like that. I don't. Ooh, it's it just it's time consuming. It's not my favorite, all the things, but I'm pushing through because I know that that's the best thing for me to do right now. And that is a goal that I have. I'm struggling, but I keep pushing through. And then I hear something. I heard we're about to have a massive winter storm hit Mississippi. And my first thought was, oh my gosh, number one, my face hurts so bad already. How am I going to do this when we have an ice storm and we have sub-freezing zero temperature? And then I'm thinking, oh, wait, how am I going to continue to exercise outside when things are iced over? I live on a slope and it's like a little hill. And I was just in my mind, I was thinking through, oh my gosh, this is about to be horrible. And then I had another thought, not long after that. Oh, wait a minute, hold up. This could be my golden ticket out of this challenge. This could be the very thing that I can publicly say, oh, well, you know, I've got the summit coming up and I've got all of this stuff. I can't injure myself. That's foolish. So I'm going to go ahead and quit. I quit this challenge because I don't want to hurt myself because there's ice everywhere and I can't exercise outside. Like that would be the thing that I would think that would hold more credibility. And as I was thinking through my exit strategy, and okay, I'll do a post about it, and I'll even tell people I just can't do that. It felt icky in my soul because that really wasn't the truth. And I think for the first time in a long time, I started to just think through wait a minute, is this goal in alignment with what is best for me right now? And I was able to just honestly think about all of what it was taking me away from and the stress it was causing and the struggle with that because I was so committed to move forward on this. But what was really needed of me is to sit at my computer and to knock out more of the things that need to be done for the worthy woman summit. The bigger thing was I had to get real with myself and just own what's the better decision for me here. And so in that moment, as I was on my walk, it was Wednesday morning. It was so cold. I was 20 minutes into my walk. Remember, I had a 45-minute walk. I made the decision. I quit. I quit right now. I'm quitting before this ice storm hits and everything shuts down. And I look like I've got my golden little ticket out of it. Oh, look at her. She did so good. Of course she had to quit. No, like I quit. I made a decision that this is out of alignment for me. Can I tell you, I felt a million pounds rolled off of my back. The first thing I did is I reached out to my accountability partner who's doing it with me. I'm saying, girl, let me tell you, Bonnie McDonald. Shout out Bonnie McDonald. She's amazing. She's doing this. I was like, girlfriend, let me tell you. I'm out. And these are the reasons why. And I just let her know. But back to the I'm a failure. Andy Frisella says, I'm a failure. And what I want to share with you, this makes me want to cry just a little bit. There would have been a time in my life where I would have felt like a failure. But praise God, I've gotten freedom from that. Come on, I want to preach right here. Whatever day you're listening to this podcast, this makes me just want to stand up and shout and preach right here. What I want to share with you is that your failures do not define you. And nor do your accomplishments. That's what I've learned. The hard way. I have allowed my accomplishments to define me. And you know what? There is no level high enough that you can get to that that feels okay in your heart. You'll never get it because you weren't meant for that. God designed you differently. You are fully loved, seen, and chosen because of who I say you are. You don't need to do all that. That's performance. That's achievement. That's striving. And I've also been at a place in my life where my failures defined me. Oh man, let me tell you something. The shame that I lived with for so many years because of my broken past and my story. And I carried the shame of as a survivor of domestic violence and abuse, I was the typical one who carried that shame with me forward in the fault for years. It took me so long to understand that is not who I was. That's not how God saw me. So I've learned the hard way, both of these, that my failures nor my accomplishments define me only who Jesus Christ says that I am. Praise God. There's so much freedom in that. Let me tell you something. That's walking worthy right there. That I want healed people, heal people. So if there's any part of you that's struggling with moving forward, that is not for you. Oh man, it just leads you down a hustling path. And I know, like it's hard for us, high performance. This is where it's this constant surrender, a constant surrender. Seek first the kingdom of God, his righteousness, everything else will be added unto you. Standing in your identity, like contending and fighting for that and continuing to move forward. I remember also years ago, I had a goal every year of I'm gonna write a book, I'm gonna write a devotional, I'm gonna write a book, I'm gonna write a devotional. And what I want to share with you are three things that you need to know so you can make sure you are operating in wisdom and discernment. Now, real quick, just before we run through these three questions, I want to make sure you understand. In no way am I recommending that you just quit what feels hard. Absolutely not. That's part of the process for you to get to the other side. So, this is not permission to do that. I am not stating that at all. I just felt like I need this disclaimer. What I want to share with you is truly a higher level of awareness and using a spirit of excellence operating in, which is one of the faith-fueled high-performance habits that I teach in my program, Accelerate Her, those women are crushing it over there. I have about 40 women right now that are working on their goals in this program. It is a game changer, okay? And so a spirit of excellence is what we're working toward. Not perfection, very, very different, but doing moving forward with wisdom and discernment. So here's the thing wisdom asks, number one, is this goal aligned with my highest priority in this particular season, or is it pulling me away from what matters most? I have done this myself. I've been guilty of this myself, pursuing that goal, pursuing that dream, pursuing that desire that was in my heart, and it got out of alignment and it turned selfish. I'm not proud of that. And I also know that this is something that high performers, again, we can struggle with when we don't practice that surrender and that balance. In fact, one of the reasons why I became a certified high performance coach was I also hit clinical burnout because I just pushed, pushed too hard, too fast, nonstop, no rest, no recovery. And I was out of alignment with not only my health and wellness, but I believe God's will. So there's a big difference here, okay? Discernment asks here's the question: is it time to push through? Is it time to pivot, or is it time to let go? I want you to take that goal. If you're on the fence and you're like, I don't know, maybe this is something I need to consider. Number one, I want you to check your alignment. Does this goal still fit the season that you're in? Number two, I want you to check your impact. Is this goal stretching you as goals should? Or is it sucking your soul, baby? Like two very different things. Stretching you. Health and wellness is the easiest one to use on something like this. It would be like saying that this whole food nutrition plan that you decided to get on for a healthier lifestyle, you hate it. You miss your Popeye's fried chicken, you're missing your cookies and your ice cream after dinner, and it's just too much. No, no, no, no. That's stretching you. Sucking your soul dry would be that you're on some sort of a plan and all you can drink is chicken broth and you're on like super restricted calories and it's draining your energy, and it's absolutely not good for you. That would be soul sucking. When it comes to health and nutrition and wellness, it's probably just stretching you. Okay. I just want to say that right there. And then the last thing, the third thing is is check your motive. This is the big one. This is the big one for me. This is where I fell off. Are you becoming more of who you're called to be? Is this uh shaping your character and forming you more into the image of Christ? Or are you trying to prove something? Are you trying to prove something to yourself, maybe somebody else? Are you stuck in performance, improving, and striving and hustling? Maybe you started with the best motivation and God has called you to this, and somehow or another, you got out of enlightenment. Right? That is the this is your your wake-up call to pivot. Come back. God's grace is there for all of us. Okay. Some of the things you just need to push through. This is it, it's just hard. The process of change, honestly, it's just hard. Nobody likes to do that. But I know that for me particular, that's what's best for me right now in this season. Okay. And then the let go. That was my 75 hard. Check alignment. Did that goal still fit the season I was in? No, it didn't. It didn't fit the season I'm in. I'm still exercising, by the way. I'm still exercising 30, 45 minutes per day. Number two, check your impact. Is this stretching you or becoming soul sucking? It was sucking my soul. It was. It was more than stretching me, it was sucking my soul. And number three, check my motives. Am I becoming who I was called to be? Is that bringing me like more like Christ? Or is it something I was trying to prove? You know, I think I'm trying to prove something. So anyway, when alignment is off, the process feels soul-sucking, and the motive is performance-driven. It's time to pivot, or maybe it's time to let go. Not quit growth, not quit discipline. We have to have those things to move forward. So this is not your permission to do either of that. But maybe there's an area of your life where you do need to tighten up your discipline, right? You're killing it on some other ends, but you need to tighten it up. That's all of us. So just quit no longer what's no longer serving the assignment. Let it go, baby. Let it go, right? So let it go, and I want You to know that you got this. Keep going. Keep moving forward. Keep on that growth process. Keep walking worthy. It's worth it. When we are all moving forward, like I just have this vision in my head of women linking arms together, moving forward in growth, moving forward in leadership, moving forward to each of our next level. And it requires of us that we get out of our comfort zones to go forward, but it doesn't demand that it suck the life out of our soul. So anyway, I would love to hear from you, truly, actually. I would love to hear from you if this has resonated with you as much as it did with all of my friends on Facebook. And by the way, if we're not friends on Facebook, let's become friends. Amy Hill Ramsey is where you can find me there. But I want to know if this resonated with you, if this was something that gave you the grace enough to be able to say, yeah, let let me stop being so hard on myself. And that's what I want to wrap up this episode with this week is please stop being so hard on yourself. And know that that that part of us that we are naturally hard on ourselves is not serving us. It's not helping us move forward. It is not helping to move the needle forward. It often keeps us stuck in cycles. So don't do that. Wisdom asks, is the goal still aligned with my highest priority, or is it pulling me away from what matters most? Discernment asks, is it time to push through, pivot, or let go? Check your alignment, check your impact, check your motives to keep going, to keep walking worthy in a way that's healthy for your spirit, for your body, for your soul. You've got this. I love you. I'm cheering you on. Okay, my friend, go walk worthy today.