Fibromyalgia Diagnosis and Lowering the Bar

7 years post fibromyalgia diagnosis and I’m still trying to accept that lowering the bar is essential to living my best life. Pushing myself beyond my physical limitations leads to a flare, period.

I push too hard and I get knocked down. It’s really that simple. Forgiving myself these limits. Now that’s where I struggle.

Pre Fibromyalgia Diagnosis

I’d like to say that I’ve learned not to beat myself up over it. But, that’d be a lie.

The truth is that I still spend way too much time belittling myself for not getting things done. And, when I do finally finish a task, I judge myself in comparison to my pre fibromyalgia diagnosis standards. Which I can no longer live up to.

So, what does this achieve? Nothing positive, that’s for sure. Quite the opposite. I deflate my energy level to sub-zero with all the unspoken words of criticism bouncing around in my head.

Instead, I should be supportive and patting myself on the back for doing my best. I know I need to adjust the bar downward. It’s just that I’m having a hard time accepting it.

Sometimes the sky is not the only limit
Sometimes the Sky is not the Only Limit

Setting Fibro Standards

This brings me to my biggest fibromyalgia lifestyle hurdle; learning to lower the bar.

Having to lower my standards, is my biggest fibro struggle. Not the pain. Except when I’m having a fibro flare of course. Then pain is number one. But even then, often I spend much of my involuntary painful downtime stressing over what I’m not getting done.

My insurmountable hurdle since my Fibromyalgia diagnosis has been accepting that I can no longer strive for excellence in everything that I do.  I have always been an overachiever and strove to continuously raise the bar higher. I’m very competitive. And pre-Fibromyalgia diagnosis, my toughest opponent at most things was always myself.

Whatever I achieved, I’d push myself to do it better the next time.

Need to start showing myself a little more love after fibromyalgia diagnosis
Time to Start Showing Myself a Little Love

7 years after having been diagnosed with Fibromyalgia I’m finally learning to accept that my standards have to change and that I need to start congratulating myself a little more on my many daily successes rather than condemning myself for things beyond my control.

Sometimes in life, the sky is not the only limit and that is ok.

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Don’t you just love when someone says you need to be more active?

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