Allowing myself partial credit: Ditched & Solo at the Club

This lesson goes along with my previous post.  I realize that I am often a man of extremes and I don't do well in the middle.  As I said in my last post, I've struggled with feeling like I suck at something if I'm not the best.  Tonight, I battled with a similar lesson of giving myself some credit for what I did tonight and not just focusing on what I really should have done if I were to have done things correctly.  

Exercise partial credit:

I found out last minute that I was going to attend this men's group that my friend has been asking me to attend.  I had forgotten about it and when I woke up to a message from him, I decided it was a good day to make him happy.  It ended up being a worthwhile event.

Before that, I was left with not enough time to exercise.  I wanted to run 4-6 miles but I had time for 2-3, and I ended up cutting it short to 2, which turned out to be wise as I would have been pressed for time otherwise.  

In the past, I would have been pissed off that I didn't get the whole work out in and/or I might have just blown it off because 2 miles is shit compared to what I really planned on doing.  

I ended up doing a partial workout when I got home.  I was debating doing a full body workout, but I just did legs since I had done that last Friday and I don't want to wait longer than 5 days to work those muscles again.  I could have forced myself to do the full body but I decided I was just going to go with my mother tomorrow.  

I thought about how if I had just done these little work outs instead of quitting for 2-3 months, I wouldn't have gotten as fat and it wouldn't have been as rough of a comeback.  

Ditched:

I normally have reliable friends as I'll stop making plans with flakes.  I ended up in a situation where I ended up telling my friend that I had plans to go to this club with Disney after the men's group.  Seagull said he was coming out.  I ended up at the ten o'clock meeting time taking advantage of my gift card, but also screwing up my training.  I would have liked to not have eaten anything so I could max out at the buffet tomorrow but instead I ate too many calories.  I think that's why I was able to make myself do a workout so I could at least put the calories towards something. 

 

I don't even care that they couldn't come out, I just hate that I didn't find out until later.  Disney said he was coming out after the Blackhawks game, but that went to double overtime and I wasn't surprised when he said around 11:15 that he was just gonna go home.  

I was aggravated that I could have been out with my friend that I didn't make plans with and that I was stuck at Bar Louie by myself.

Sarging solo:

I've progressed enough the past two weeks that I'm fine with being solo, but I'd rather know ahead of time.  I would have just went out in the suburbs to this place I used to go to every Wednesday night three years ago just to check it out.  Again, I also could have stayed out with my friend.  

I could have just driven home, but I decided I might as well check out this club that Disney started promoting.  I'd keep some momentum going by forcing myself to do approaches (well it turned out to be one approach), and I'd know if the club was worth doing over the other venues we frequent on Wednesday.

I walked in and was surprised how small the area was for tonight.  They had totally remodeled this place from what it was another venue and I think they closed off half the club since they anticipated it being slow on a spring Wednesday.  

I immediately opened this seated two set but she busted me out a few mins in.  I suppose I could/should've done RSD Alex's idea of plowing 4 times and then giving up.  When she told me, "We're having a girls night out" I just gave up but I suppose I could have plowed.  The thing was that it was a few mins in so I figured I hadn't hooked it so why bother.

Waiting too long:

I approached that immediately and then I just started dancing by myself near the dance floor.  I thought about opening this group of girls by the bottle service area.  It turns out I should have just went right over there.  Instead, I waited, and then this bouncer about 40 minutes in decides to tell me that I need to dance more away from the carpeted area.  It was stupid; if you could see where I was dancing, I was fine where I was.  What it did do was make me definitely not want to open any girls in that area.  

The lesson was if I just opened them earlier, I wouldn't have procrastinated it, and I would have looked like I knew the set.  

Girl wants to dance with me:

At least I got some positive feedback.  There was this other table with two guys and two girls. Again, I was dancing solo the entire time.  I was hard on myself Saturday because that was the wrong time to entertain myself, but I should give myself credit for being at this place alone and being able to just have fun without sitting there looking stupid by playing with my phone (which was low battery anyway) or looking stupid standing there doing nothing.  

The two girls started dancing near the area between the carpeted and tile area where I had been dancing previously.  Suddenly, about ten minutes after they started, while I was still dancing by myself, this blonde came over and tapped me on the shoulder.  Before I could try to dance with her, the brunette friend pulled her away.  I had seen these girls with the two guys in the seating area and they did look together so I didn't really follow through.  

About 5 minutes later, the girls danced in front of the dj, so I moved over there and danced near the blonde, but then the brunette dragged her away again.

Partial credit vs What I should have done:

Here is the point of this whole post.  I should give myself some credit for being out solo after getting ditched and opening right away.  I also had fun by myself and did so well enough that the blonde was interested in me even though her guy was likely there.  

I kept thinking about how I should have done things.  If I were to do things right, again, I should have opened the 4 girls, 1 guy set in the seating area.  I should have opened these two girls that came in late and were near me, but then went to the other seating area.  I felt like I should have talked to some guys to make friends in the venue. 

It's my nature to want to beat myself up for not doing things perfectly or giving an even better effort, but I should be happy that I didn't just go home and that I did do some things right despite my friends making it harder for me this evening.  

I'll close by saying that if I do something little every day, and if I try to do more each time than I did the last time, then I'll keep advancing.  It's so much better to at least do some sort of effort that to just stay home or go home or just do nothing.