Has your life become all about setting and achieving goals? When you encounter problems in life, is your solution to do more, work harder, and put another goal in place only to turn around and repeat this cycle when the next problem presents itself? Listen to this episode of The Appetite where Opal Co-Founders, Lexi Giblin, PhD and Kara Bazzi, LMFT discuss how this compulsive striving approach to life can work for you AND against you. With a particular eye on disordered eating and movement, they ask questions to help you discern if your values or the achievement hustle is driving your life. With society’s value on high productivity, this conversation offers a welcome reprieve from hustle culture and suggests that practicing the art of non-productivity is exactly what is most needed.
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Thank you to our team…
Editing by David Bazzi
Music by Aaron Davidson: https://soundcloud.com/diet75/
Sound engineering by Ayesha Ubayatilaka at Jack Straw Studios
Transcription by Rev.com
Lexi Giblin (00:07):
Welcome to the Appetite, a podcast brought to you by Opal Food and Body Wisdom, an eating disorder treatment clinic in Seattle, Washington. On this podcast, we talk about all things food, body movement, and mental health. I am Dr. Lexi Giblin, a founder and executive director of Opal and one of your hosts. For today, I am sitting here with Ms. Kara Bazzi who is my dear friend and co-founder and clinical director of Opal.
Kara Bazzi (00:41):
Hi everyone.
Lexi Giblin (00:43):
And it’s kind of awesome because we’re sitting here today to talk to you about compulsive striving, and I’d say Kara and I are pretty major compulsive striving people. So we’ve done a lot of work in this area, I would say, and probably one of the reasons Opal is the way it is, is that Julie Kara and I are major strivers. So this is something we’ve really had to work on over the years of Opal to better take care of ourselves and not just keep on striving. So maybe how about we start with just laying some of the groundwork for this conversation, and then we’ll get into some more specifics. So radically open dialectical behavioral therapy talks about two bio- temperamentally driven, yet qualitatively different responses to stress. And one is avoidant coping, where you turn away from stressors to regulate your emotions, to manage your emotions.
(01:49):
So this is more of the procrastination approach. So avoiding the problem, not trying to pretend like it’s not there or delaying dealing with it. And then the other way of coping with stress is approach coping, and this is where you turn towards the problem, turn towards the stress to regulate your emotion or to decrease stress and work to prevent future stress. And over controlled temperament styles, temperaments that tend to be more inhibited and careful are more likely to use an approach coping style when under stress. So that gives you the lay of the land. So we’re talking about today the approach coping style when the approach coping style goes wild. And I want to say approach coping has been an amazing part of my life in some way. So I kind of have a love hate relationship with approach coping. How would you see that for yourself, Kara?
Kara Bazzi (03:01):
Yeah. I would also consider it more of a love hate relationship in the ways that it has worked for me and then the ways that it’s worked against me.
Lexi Giblin (03:12):
And sometimes I would say you have to compulsively strive. A lot of people are compulsively striving. In order to survive, you have to get money to get food, to get basics for your health. Compulsive striving is necessary. And I wonder when you think about, or maybe when we think about compulsive striving in our lives, where would we think, gosh, this is moving from an effective way of managing stressors to a more compulsive, excessive, rigid way of coping?
Kara Bazzi (03:53):
You want me to give examples
Lexi Giblin (03:55):
Or what
Kara Bazzi (03:56):
Would we be looking for?
Lexi Giblin (03:57):
What does it look like? Yeah, what does it look like to veer into compulsive striving? What might this look like?
Kara Bazzi (04:04):
I think the first thing that comes to my mind when I think of it crossing over into a problematic, it very is a fine line. This is a gray area, but when one is getting very rigid of being kind of myopic and almost compulsive obsessive about completing or about achieving or striving, so that rigidity not being able to pivot and move towards something else that’s important. For example, when I’m under stress, I might feel like I have to respond to all my emails within the end of the day, and I kind of create this rule that that has to happen and can be irritated if anything disrupts that goal, even if the thing that disrupts that goal is I value a lot more, is more important to me, including if it was related to being disrupted by my kids or doing something for social connection. So those are first that come to my mind. What about you, Lexi?
Lexi Giblin (05:15):
Well, I’m just thinking about it in the eating disorder treatment context, what it looks like for our clients is often this setting a particular weight goal and then reaching that weight goal and then setting another weight goal that’s even lower, reaching that one, then setting another lower one, and this never ending kind of search for some sort of end point or some sort of feeling that never comes.
Kara Bazzi (05:48):
So continuing to strive despite not reaching or tuning into the satisfaction of completing a goal,
Lexi Giblin (05:56):
Not stopping to celebrate, and maybe just staying where you are for a little while and slowing down. And when I’m in a major compulsive striving kind of place, it seems like it is just this pursuit of a white rabbit that I’m never, I may never reach, and it just feels like there’s no actual end point where I’m going to feel such joy at having hit some sort of end point. It just becomes another goal,
Kara Bazzi (06:29):
Not stopping no celebration point,
Lexi Giblin (06:33):
Just subtle,
Kara Bazzi (06:34):
Inevitable. That also makes me think of a flag of this being problematic would be exhaustion. And I think in the example you’re giving, I hear that and I’m exhausted, which I don’t recognize sometimes my own exhaustion when I’m in it, but it could be that to not stop or slow down can obviously create exhaustion and even health problems, sicknesses, immune system decreasing
Lexi Giblin (07:02):
Because just kind of overriding what your body’s needing. There’s something your anxiety is overriding any attunement to your body.
Kara Bazzi (07:11):
Yeah, attunement to emotion attunement to physiological body symptoms, right?
Lexi Giblin (07:16):
It sort of comes like nothing’s more important
Kara Bazzi (07:19):
Than the
Lexi Giblin (07:19):
Goal, than the goal. And then I feel like it’s seductive because you feel like if I finish this particular task or meet this particular goal, I’m finally going to feel satisfied. And then you get there, of course you don’t, but then you feel like, oh, but I think this goal would really, if I meet this goal, this one will really, this will be the one that allows me to rest. And it kind of always feels like that after years and years of doing it, you kind of get wise to wait. I don’t think I’m ever going to feel that thing that I’m trying to find.
Kara Bazzi (07:58):
Yeah, I think there is an aspect of the hustle for your worth when you’re trying to prove yourself as well. Could be another red flag, which I would say, I mean, I think it’s important to acknowledge kind of privilege that comes with that is we are in a hierarchical society around people having systemically, people having more worth than others. And so I think that’s really hard of being driven to be able to prove worth adequacy, especially if you’re in a marginalized group or have marginalized identities. How do you not get caught up in that in some ways to prove that you’re valuable and worthy and to get the things that you want in life? It’s hard in our system how our system is set up in that way.
Lexi Giblin (08:49):
Yeah. Well, it seems like compulsive striving is often there’s a feeling of maybe there’s shame that’s kind of driving it. Basically you’re feeling like who you are right now is not good enough, but if I did this thing, then I would be adequate. And it’s sort of this attempt at reducing shame, and that seems like why it’s so powerful, it has such a drive to it.
Kara Bazzi (09:19):
Yeah. I think one of the questions we could be asking ourselves in that is, what is this preventing us from feeling? Because I think for me, shame really resonates from a pattern of that compulsive striving earlier in my life. And not that it doesn’t show up now, but I would say what’s more common now in my compulsive striving is that I might not want to feel other things or attend to other emotions or what might be going on because it’s in some ways a relief to focus on a goal and check something off the to-do list and be a distraction.
Lexi Giblin (09:56):
Totally. Yeah. I mean this feeling of when you’re not working on a clear goal or achieving something, then you’re in just, there’s a lot of space and a lot more, to me, it kind of can feel like a lack. There’s a loss of meaning. The goal itself gives you this meaning. And so when I don’t have, I’ve worked on that, the compulsive striving piece of when I’m not striving, learning to find meaning in the slowdown and that there’s not always the goal of life is not achievement of goals. In some ways. Of course, that’s part of life, but I just lose perspective when I’m in that is that really what my life is about is achievement. And I feel like I do a lot better when I have my one foot in the bigger picture.
Kara Bazzi (10:52):
Yeah, it’s a good stand-in just to distract, really. And I think when I’m in one of those cycles, in some ways it can be a little more silly what I’m trying to keep achieving and fill up. You lose perspective. I think you lose creativity. You lose somewhat of a bigger sense of yourself. One thing that’s coming to my mind is a period of time where I took a month off of work and I actually had excitement and fear going into that of what was I going to discover when I took this big part of my life out. And yet, and not that the whole time was easy, but I think one thing I recognized is the importance of the withdrawing from the doing and the contemplation, the rest, and how that breeds creativity. When we’re bored, we get to connect to things that we wouldn’t let our mind wander to, and we can see things in the world. We can see things. For me, I got to see a lot in nature that I wouldn’t normally notice because my head wasn’t filled. My head wasn’t on that hamster wheel of filled with thoughts. And I know that’s somewhat why meditation is such a helpful tool is to what can we discover when we’re present and not filled with our filled with thoughts constantly?
Lexi Giblin (12:30):
Yes. And I’m thinking about how whenever we are compulsive, we’re in a intense compulsive striving zone of do more, try harder, that there’s sort of this dream that we have about what it will be like once we achieve the goal, what life will have. And with eating disorders, of course, there’s this often a fantasy about the life that you will have if you look a particular way at a particular weight. So it seems like there’s always, there’s a fantasy that is part of the compulsive striving, I’m going to feel this particular way. And then of course, what we see every day at Opal is that is not getting them where they want to go, but they are struggling to no longer do the compulsive striving even though they are not arriving where they thought they would.
Kara Bazzi (13:25):
Could you say more Lexi about recognizing the compulsive striving and that it’s not creating kind of a meaningful outcome even in the context of treatment? What are the skills or what then would we recommend, or what skills or treatment would we offer as an alternative?
Lexi Giblin (13:47):
Yeah. Often I think at Opal it looks like it’s not a treatment time, but I actually think it’s one of the biggest parts of treatment for a lot of our clients, and that is what we call the art of non productivity and pleasure. So this just learning, strengthening that muscle of just being without doing and learning to find out what brings you pleasure and do more of that is compulsive striving sort of is like, who cares about rest? Who cares about pleasure? This is about achieving a goal. So that work of giving yourself permission to have times of rest to be non-productive and seek pleasure,
Kara Bazzi (14:38):
What does that actually look like? At Opal
Lexi Giblin (14:41):
Opal, we have a break time that’s called the Art of Non Productivity, and it seems like people are doing all sorts of things during that time. Some I heard the other day, someone singing in there, which I was so happy to hear that just hanging out and singing. I think I see a lot of people just hanging out and talking, playing cards, just slowing down, turning off the doing part of themselves and learning to just rest and just be.
Kara Bazzi (15:17):
So there’s no guidance per se. It’s the fact is it’s a carved out period of time that that’s the whole intention and that kind of all the other productive tasky things in some ways are blocked by this. We try by this hour or half hour. So I wonder in how that gets kind of translatable. And it does actually make me think of some of the individual work I’ve done with over controlled clients around making that recommendation of having daily doses of time that is not intended for productivity. So whether that’s there is some structure offered by an app on meditation or whether that is guidance of breathing or connecting to the five senses or looking out the window of what you see outside. But I think the repetition, it’s like building a muscle of that repetition of being able to be tuned out and turn away from a to-do list in your head even. And building that muscle, I know that’s been effective for me is to even be able to build that ability to do it
Lexi Giblin (16:34):
Right. Yeah. And one thing we’ve found is just saying to our clients, you just get to be non-productive for a half an hour and just be that that’s a little too wide open. So what we’ve done is focused on more pleasure activism during that time so that what feels good right now? Does it feel good to close your eyes? Does it feel good to meditate? Does it feel good to talk to your friend? What feels good? And kind of following pleasure as a guide. And of course with this conversation, it’s opened up a lot of feelings about pleasure and about guilt related to experiencing pleasure. So that’s the cool thing about compulsive striving work is when you turn off the compulsive striving, what do you find underneath?
Kara Bazzi (17:31):
Exactly.
Lexi Giblin (17:32):
Yeah.
Kara Bazzi (17:33):
Yeah. And I hear that as then you’re giving some guidance of what in some ways, what options could people even do an alternative, I would imagine. And I think of our clients, they might not even know what that looks like of what are other things that guide, how do you even tune into what pleasure feels like if you have denied pleasure for a long time? And I know that’s a theme of folks with eating disorders.
Lexi Giblin (17:59):
Exactly right. It’s like the struggle to identify what even sounds good. And then if they do identify what sounds good, allowing themselves permission to do that thing, and if they do that thing, dealing with guilt that might come up or lack of worthiness.
Kara Bazzi (18:19):
I think too, what I’ve noticed with our clients is that guilt would often, if they weren’t in the context of treatment, would prevent them from trying. And so I think what a lot of treatment is support to do something that’s really hard to do given the emotions that come up with it. So if this is something that you identify as a listener with, I think that accountability or that structure is really important because of the feelings that come up associated with doing something different and how it makes it really hard to do the different thing.
Lexi Giblin (19:00):
Right? Yeah. It’s sort of this, your approach coping on one hand by doing the thing, but you’re avoiding coping by avoiding emotion. So what’s going to come up when you slow down is an unknown and can be really scary for folks.
Kara Bazzi (19:18):
Yeah. Are there other skills that you can think of that would help somebody develop an alternative to the compulsive striving? One thought that comes up to my mind, my mind is, again, the opposite seems like giving perspective giving, and I know this is kind of one of those therapy tools, but that idea of how would you want to be remembered by in your death? I know that’s a morbid in some ways, could be considered a morbid exploration, but we see it as really a beautiful invitation of how do you want to be remembered because it gets you synced up with your highest values, and do you want to be remembered for checking off your to-do list every day? That probably won’t matter much in that moment. And so recentering on what’s most important. And then being able to ask yourself, is that aligned with what I’m doing in this moment? And sometimes we have to do busy work, obviously, but even the busy work, is that connected to something that’s aligned with our values?
Lexi Giblin (20:27):
Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. The values work of if achievement is important, value a goal, then what can kind of stand beside it? Because sometimes compulsive striving just takes over and the person loses sight of their interest in connection with others and the greater kind of meaning of life.
Kara Bazzi (20:51):
So what are good questions we could ask ourselves to become more aware if we’re in an unhelpful compulsive striving?
Lexi Giblin (21:03):
I always think of the question, am I hustling for my worth? So when it starts to feel connected to worthiness, I think that’s a great one for me.
Kara Bazzi (21:15):
Yeah.
Lexi Giblin (21:15):
Can you think of any,
Kara Bazzi (21:17):
When was the last time I rested? When was the last time? For me, the practice that I don’t do daily, but it’s my intention and I’ve now found that I like it, is laying down and really looking out the window. I’ve really ended up connecting with that practice.
Lexi Giblin (21:44):
I am also thinking questions like, am I anxious about what I might do with my life if I don’t stay busy with striving? What’s behind the striving? Am I avoiding uncomfortable emotions by intensely approach coping?
Kara Bazzi (22:03):
Unlike we said earlier, after I do achieve a goal, do I celebrate? Do I stop? Do I celebrate? Is there a recognition for that goal and a chance and opportunity to experience the pleasure of that?
Lexi Giblin (22:18):
Yeah, celebrate and then maybe not set a goal for a little while. Let yourself just kind of recover from the hard work you just did, rather than setting another goal immediately.
Kara Bazzi (22:33):
Another good question is, am I satisfied?
Lexi Giblin (22:36):
Yeah. When it starts to become a hamster wheel kind of feeling,
Kara Bazzi (22:41):
Or do I need to do this now? That’s a good one for me. Do I have to do this now? That one is a question I could ask every day. It’s a big one. And even asking myself that question, I still can say yes, but to give myself enough of a pause to say, is this necessary? I have to, is there something else that could take my attention
Lexi Giblin (23:04):
Related? One I’m thinking of is, am I taking life too seriously? Compulsive striving is particularly tough because our culture loves compulsive striving and rewards it in terms of money, in terms of status, in terms of respect, in all kinds of ways. So it’s particularly seductive in that way as well.
Kara Bazzi (23:34):
Yeah. Even you saying that made me immediately think of the nature of social media, and especially for folks where that is a big part of their profession or mission, how it’s hard to get out of that pattern of moving towards for fear that that would impact potentially livelihood.
Lexi Giblin (23:59):
Right. I hope today that at least we’ve given you some language maybe for this that is so common for so many of us and such a big part of our lives that this difference between compulsive striving and striving or doing so, I hope this connected for you, for you. Thank you to Jacks Straw Cultural Center for Sound Engineering. Thanks to Aaron Davidson for the Appetite’s original music, and to David Bazzi for editing. If you want to learn more about opal’s programming, go to opal food and body.com. Tell next time.
