Why the hell do we constantly think we have to be perfect??? As a mom, manager, employee, wife, and an entrepreneur why the heck do I feel like I should be able to do it all….. And do it all well? This is what I ask myself today as I sit after totally screwing up the whole parenting while working and my kid is attending school online thing. I mean… just typing that overwhelms me. How can I put all of this pressure on myself? It's just silly. But I do it… we do it. All… the…. Time.
Just last week, I was replying to one of those "ask a question" things on an Instagram story. The question was something like "what pressure do we constantly feel as women"… very loosely quoted of course. And I immediately thought that we feel pressure to do it all and well. I remember thinking how relieved I felt that I personally embrace the fact that I'm not perfect. That I'm not going to always get it right. And that it's ok and I give myself grace often…
And then I made a mistake.
A forgivable one. A fixable one. But a mistake nonetheless. And what did I do? I felt the pressure and the guilt. And I felt it big time for a few hours. I was heartbroken that I'd let someone down even after the issue was resolved. My saving grace is that now I recognize this as an emotion. I felt bad for the mistake. But I'm saying "no, thank you" to the guilt. Because I know that I'm doing the best that I can to try and attend to all the priorities in my life. Some days I won't be perfect. Some days I will royally screw up. These mess ups are all lessons to be learned and if I pay attention they're actually making me a better me.
That's what this health journey is all about in the first place. Me making myself a better me. A better mom and wife. A better friend. A better manager. A better health coach. It boggles my mind that I started this whole process to lose some weight so I could stick around on the planet for as long as I could. And then it morphed into doing it because I was worthy of taking care of myself. That messaging changed for me when I started working on my mindset and I'm so thankful for that.
So I guess my message for myself today is that grace and forgiveness are not just for other people. More often than not that grace and forgiveness is for ourselves. And I am worthy of it.
