One of the mindsets that I have come to master, and absolutely LOVE, is the idea of progress over perfection. I’ve always been a self-proclaimed perfectionist, and I firmly believe that it goes back to my early days as a gymnast when I was told that anything less than a gold medal was categorized as failure. I know, harsh. However, as I’ve gotten older (and just a little wiser) I’ve come to realize that perfection is hardly attainable, and to be honest, it’s overrated. Humans are not perfect, and so going about life acting as though everything is perfect is not genuine.
This past Monday I completely missed my morning routine. Like not because I was up and a conflict arose, but because I slept in. I hit snooze, the kiddos slept in, I ended up running around trying to get the house in order before workers came over, and there’s no other way to put it other than I was completely late picking up the babysitter. It wasn’t until nearly 3:00 pm when I realized that I hadn’t meditated, or even taken a moment to breathe since waking up and hitting the ground running–this of course was right as I was heading into an afternoon Zoom meeting.
I know, I’m the one who is always preaching about, “how you start your day sets the tone for the rest of it”. I have to admit that my initial thoughts when I reflected on that morning were disappointment in myself; the perfectionist side of me cringes simply because feeling rushed and out of sorts is what I try to avoid at all costs. For every morning the last five months prior, I’ve mediated before answering a single email. But not that morning. And you know what, it’s okay. The key is to hold enough self-awareness to realize when you’re not following what you should, and then practicing grace + discipline to get yourself back on track. Progress is always marked by setbacks (both big and small), but as long as you learn from there and continue to move forward, you’re fine! Stop comparing yourself to those who appear to have it “perfect” all the time, and focus on making progress in whatever way this looks like to you.
So how did everything that morning turn out, you may wonder? After confirming there were no fires to put out in my inbox, I immediately shut everything down and started my “morning routine” per usual… at 3:52pm. I completed the daily @calm and I read through two devotionals on @youversion. This late-day restart was an amazing way to get back on track for the remainder of the day, along with getting into a headspace for making progress moving forward. With this in mind, go into today with a mindset that even the smallest amount of progress is so much more beneficial than the idea of perfection–I plan to do the same!
With Love,
– LW
LIFE WITH LW 