A Table for One
SOLITARY CONFINEMENT
[This essay includes excerpts from two earlier posts.]
As we approach the end of this series, it’s worth returning to a point made very early on—not to re-argue it, but to recognise what follows.
Because the bedrock of this entire series — and Leftfield, full stop — is that this is not philosophy, or story, but a mere descriptor or feature of reality.
Just reality.
And as such, our agreement, encouragement, indifference, even resistance—none of it matters.
But— not that it matters— our subject today does elicit universal agreement. As well it might. Because you’d be very hard-pressed to make a case against the fact that the buck stops with you.
A point that, on repeating, will sound as obvious as ever, but one that is rarely fully understood. Or perhaps unexamined is a better word. Because unchallenged though it is, as is the case for so much in this domain, whatever is considered here— and understood— is far closer to fantasy than any underlying reality.
And that difference — here, as elsewhere— is a chasm to cross.
Sooner or later, everyone reaches the same point.
How many times have we heard (and said): Yes, I know that I was cautioned, that the way would become difficult and I would want to quit, that such was inevitable, and that at exactly this point the battle would be lost or won … but those who cautioned me could not have foreseen the magnitude of the specific difficulties I am encountering at this point–difficulties which must, sadly, but I have no choice, force me to resign the struggle (and have a drink, a cigarette, an affair, a rest), in short, to declare failure.
- David Mamet, Playwright
But as The School of Life advises, it isn’t necessarily difficulty that sinks us; it’s misconceived notions of what a task should legitimately demand. An idea especially well understood by those whose job it is to break the toughest people.
Consider the most anti-coaching environment you could imagine, where they are doing everything in their power to make you quit: a special forces selection. For all the tools of pain and privation at their disposal, it’s the manipulation of expectation, and the false dawn, in particular, that is easily the most effective at breaking spirits.
You turn a corner on a seemingly endless (10+ hours) pack march to finally see a truck parked at the side of a dusty road. You’ve made it. Food and warmth await. You’re told to jump in and wait a few minutes to see if anybody else has made it inside the required time window. In the next few minutes, more broken bodies shuffle onboard.
And then you’re off. Homeward bound, or so you believe. But after a mere two minutes down the road, the truck pulls over. There’s a change of plans, and you’re told to get out and march the rest of the way— the remaining half of the way.
Or you can quit and stay warm in the truck. Many do, unable to summon the strength to go again because this shatters will.
Others rouse themselves, jump down, and painfully pull their packs back on as the truck disappears into the distance. Steeling themselves for the pain to come, they stumble down the road only to find the truck parked again—for real this time— just around the first corner.
About the most painful walk you could ever do.
Only more painful if you didn’t.
Social support is often cited as a predictor of fitness (including dietary) success. Programs emphasise accountability partners, group classes, and community engagement, and the research supports it with social support boosting attendance, adherence and intensity.
Correspondingly, that’s where the conventional (fitness and dietary) approach puts all its focus, but—as usual— tells less than half the story and fails to even acknowledge the flipside, much less inoculate against it.
Oftentimes, they become the point, and you end up with socially supported attendance. And that’s about it.
No doubt, all these are nice-to-haves. Decorative. The problem is that they become load-bearing. All made pivotal to the project and thereby only ensuring that, one day, the project isn’t.
And this was certainly my experience, writing back in 2018, that “the single greatest predictor of success in the Leftfield Nutrition Coaching program was the social support available to participants.”
Even with a great coach in your corner and, in the later years of that nutrition-specific program, a supportive group, it was no exaggeration to say that the whole project hinged on the degree to which friends and family, colleagues and acquaintances would rally to your cause.
All antithetical to Leftfield axioms of self-responsibility and self-reliance aside, I wasn’t about to leave my fate in somebody else’s hands. Tired of seeing my best efforts undone and feeling guilty about what I wanted to do to Debbie, who scuppered your chances with a few backhanded ‘compliments’ and some passive-aggressive fridge notes, I set about fixing it.
But hiring a roster of steadfast friends and shoulders to cry on proved impractical. And although this is now possible with a chatbot who’ll breezily have your back and no doubt a few pithy rejoinders to put Debbie back in her box, it’s all by the by.
Because I fixed it anyway. And now, whatever the reasons that might pull us from the practice path, I’m proud as punch to report that social support or lack thereof—doesn’t even feature.
And it all came down to that critical coaching concept— setting expectations. And in the evolution from the old nutrition coaching program to writing a new curriculum, the single change I made in this regard is that I flagged it.
Actually, I more than flagged it. I already knew, as Mamet describes above, that even an often-repeated caution wouldn’t do the job.
And there was already that focus on all those self-reliant qualities central to the Leftfield approach. It wasn’t even that we explored it in all its unspoken detail but that it became the theme, not underlying all others, but front and centre.
[First with Leftfield Solo and then]
Leftfield Youniversity.
You. And only you.
Not as some pessimistic Eeyore perspective equally unhelpful as— or even to balance— the Pollyanna flipside. Not a Cassandra catastrophising of worst-case scenarios.
A clear-eyed forecast of the norm. And acknowledgement of the raw power that can be harnessed here for good or ill. More specifically, how a mismatch — getting it wrong— will not just take the air out of your sails but sink you altogether.
And by anticipating—training for— the sure certainty not just of this eventuating but as the status quo, we didn’t just turn a common point of failure into a strength.
We recognised it as such.
Because while the issue is less about the absence of support than the expectation of it, food and fitness occupy a strange position in this regard. In any other department, what would seem overbearing, inappropriate or flat-out insulting gets a free pass when it comes to what we eat or how we exercise.
People will keep their opinions on your new drapes to themselves, but here they feel entitled to comment. And it’s not just the raised eyebrow, or “one won’t hurt”, but even the best intentioned: what you eat, how you train, whether you rest, how often, how much— all open to interpretation, suggestion, and revision.
When you keep your own counsel, you’re not so influenced by noise. And, trust me, it’s all noise.
That isn’t an argument for stubbornly ignoring (useful) feedback. You can forget about listening to anybody who doesn’t already have what you want for a start. And when you winnow out the noise, what remains is the signal. Fatigue. Hunger. Performance. Recovery. The direct feedback of the system itself.
And, once again, while this approach honours our agency and sovereignty, making our practice and by extension ourselves that much more resilient, it does so because, at bottom, it is a simple and close reflection of what is.
There is but one name on that biological contract you have with reality
This is the first call for Leftfield Youniversity beginning, Friday, June 19th— still some away. Time to consider that you can be alone, unobserved, unrewarded, uncertain. And not just comfortable but, dare I say it, happy about it.
Enjoy your weekend
- OLI