It Ain't Gonna Kill Ya!

One of my neighbours growing up was an older woman named Mrs. Bardwell. She was probably only in her early-60s, but she may as well have been 150 to my young eyes. She was a fixture in the neighbourhood; always puttering around, getting her groceries, going to the church for bingo, tending to her garden or just sitting and watching the neighbourhood people move by.

She was also the de facto authority figure for all us kids who were out running around or riding on our bikes. I think her presence probably kept us from making some poor decisions as well - that bike ramp the boys were planning, for example, never got out of the blueprint stage, and I think that’s because they knew Mrs. B. would’ve put the kibosh on it as soon as they laid down the first piece of plywood. 

So we kept most of our crazy ideas to ourselves. But she was from a different generation and probably found some amount of risk not only acceptable, but necessary for childhood development, so we weren’t completely hamstrung. In fact, we managed to amass our fair share of cuts and bruises and scrapes. And she was always the first adult on scene when someone took a tumble.

She would show up with this white bottle of something called Bactine, which she would spray on our cuts. She said it was to keep it from getting infected, but I have no idea what was actually in it or if it did anything. The sting from that was usually worse than the pain of the injury itself, but she would insist. And while we were wincing, she would always say the same thing: “It ain’t gonna kill ya!” 

Back then, the phrase just made me grumble and pipe down a bit while I endured the bright pain of the spray on whatever open wound I had just received, but now, almost 30 years later, I’ve found that I’ve adopted it almost as my official motto!

In the past, as a coach, I often come across clients who’ve created their own obstacles. They’ve prevented themselves from achieving their goals by putting down a completely imaginary road block. I’ll give you two examples: the first is from back when green drinks first started coming on the scene.

I had recently read some studies that were done by the University of Toronto on the benefits of green drinks, and realized that they could really benefit those clients who tended to have trouble meeting their daily recommended servings of 5 - 10 vegetables a day (which was all of my clients… and me…). I thought for sure this would be an easy sell - all your servings in one tiny scoop! Who wouldn’t want that?!

And almost all of my clients did go out and buy the green drinks, but almost every single one of them came back and said “I can’t. It just tastes gross.” Now, this was in the early days, before they figured out ways to make these things more palatable (I remember when protein powder tasted like ground up chalk).

Nowadays we have way more options when it comes to deliciousness. But I was still flabbergasted - you have in front of you an incredibly simple way of ensuring that you get your veggies in, in under a minute. We both know you’re not getting them in the regular way, so here’s a perfect solution! But they couldn’t. Or, I should say, they wouldn’t. They had decided that this was something impossible to do, when it reality it was just something that was a little uncomfortable, for a very short time (and even less uncomfortable when you know that your taste buds will adapt to new flavours and it won’t seem so yucky in a week or two!).

But this obstacle was completely of their own making. Their was nothing physically preventing them - it was simply a decision they had made.

That’s when I realized I needed to borrow from Mrs. Bardwell. I started giving my clients a little tough love: “It ain’t gonna kill ya.” And, amazingly, for the majority of my non-compliant clients, that was all it took! A little reminder that the thing they didn’t want to do, wasn’t going to cause them any long-lasting issues, and in fact was actually going to be a huge benefit to them! Even the client who assured me the green drink would make them puke, somehow managed to start drinking it every single day with no ill effects.

I started repeating this new mantra of mine more and more often: “I hate squats!” “It ain’t gonna kill ya!”; “I just can’t eat that much fibre!” “It ain’t gonna kill ya!”; “There’s NO way I can get up that early!” “It ain’t gonna kill ya!”

For some clients, that was all they needed. Their results skyrocketed! For others, the blocks were deep and it took more time. But overall, I saw a huge change in my clients.

The second example is about my own daughter. When she was about 6, she was trying out a climbing wall. She was zipping up it like a spider-monkey when she decided that she couldn’t go any further. We all encouraged her and told her of course she could! But in her mind higher up meant harder, even though that wasn’t the case: the wall was the same level of difficulty all the way up. 

So she decided it was too difficult for her. She came down and was proud that she made it as far as she did. Then her friend harnessed up and scaled the whole thing. Then my daughter was furious with herself and insisted on giving it another go. Even she, as a 6 year old, recognized that the barrier that stopped her was created by her.

Over the years, I started to realize how often we are our own impediments to success; how often we decide something can’t be done; how often we are the ones saying “I can’t do this!” and limiting our own achievements! No one ran a sub-4 minute mile until Roger Bannister did. Everyone else kept telling themselves it couldn’t be done! Maybe ol’ Rog said to himself “Well, it ain’t gonna kill me to try!”

So I want you to take a look at yourself. What are you telling yourself you can’t do? Maybe it’s give up alcohol, maybe it’s give up sugar, maybe it’s meditate twice a day, maybe it’s get up earlier! Whatever it is, take a second and ask yourself: can I really not do this, or is this an “It ain’t gonna kill ya” situation?

I think you’ll be surprised at what you actually can accomplish!!