Embracing ALMOST

I give grace. To everyone. Except me.

If a friend has a goal to exercise everyday and they miss a couple days, I’m proud of them. THEY WORKED OUT MOST DAYS!

But if I had a similar goal, and I missed even a day, the whole goal would be ruined. I would hyper-focus on why I didn’t workout that day and what I could’ve done differently and I would absolutely feel like I failed.

If my husband committed to cutting out sugar for a month and he had ice cream one day, I would be thoroughly impressed that he even committed to such a savage thing in the first place.

If I committed to cutting out sugar for a month, I would stress myself out by reading every label (did you know MAYONAISSE has sugar in it??), and I could potentially ruin my life by being solely focused on not consuming ONE SINGLE GRAM OF ADDED SUGAR and if I did… my gosh, I would be so disappointed in myself.

I met with my mentor today. Carol is a wise, warm hug. I love her. The world needs more Carols. We were chatting about stress. I have come to a place in my life, for the very first time, that I have nothing major to stress about. My childhood was wonderful (but lots of stress due to addiction, broken family, money issues), I was a young single mother straight out of high school, then the stress of being married/having young kids/stressful career, and now BOOM. My kids are young adults, mostly out of the house and doing well. My marriage is in a decent place. I stepped away from my career and I am pursuing my life-long dream. I am my own boss. I operate on my own timeline. And yet there is a subtle (and sometimes not-so-subtle) baseline of stress constantly lingering. I FEEL STRESSED. Whyyyyyyyyy.

There are probably multiple reasons I feel stressed. But something that I really had to come face-to-face with today, is that I give myself unrealistic expectations and I don’t give myself grace when I don’t meet them. Waking up in the morning, with a to-do list you know you aren’t going to finish is no way to start a stress-free day.

My goal is to work on my writing project five hours per day. Last week, I hit the goal no-problem on Monday and Tuesday. Wednesday I hit four hours. Thursday and Friday I hit three hours and two hours.

How disappointing.

WAIT… NO. Nice job Me. I worked on my writing project for 19 hours last week. When I could’ve been binging Netflix, eating Bon Bons (do they still make those?), reading a novel, napping, organizing something, pulling weeds, shopping. And to top it off, I also hung out with friends, exercised, cleaned my house, and went on a retreat.

I lived the life I wanted to live last week. This-week me is patting last-week me on the back. BUT in the moment, last-week me was stressin.

How can this-week me reduce the stress and still live the life I want to live?

I’m all about a plan. (Which honestly causes stress sometimes too. Maybe I need a day to NOT have a plan and just fly by the seat of my pants.)

This week:

#1- I will give myself reasonable expectations each day. Let me be more direct. I will literally put fewer things on my to-do list. Starting tomorrow. I already done screwed up today’s expectations.

#2- I will give myself grace. I’ll have my list and my daily expectations, but if I get MOST of it done, I will focus on the success, rather than the part I failed at. I’ll get practice at that TODAY! Lucky me. It’s halfway through the day and there’s no way I will finish my list.

#3- I will ponder and pay attention to WHY I do this. Why do I give myself such a long list of to-do’s? Why do I feel guilty when I don’t get everything done? What am I getting out of doing these tasks? Am I using my accomplishments to prove my worth to myself or to my husband or to God or to my kids/friends/family? Am I struggling with some other aspect of my life or well-being that is easy to ignore when I have a mountain of tasks and chores to complete? Am I just bad at time management? Do I need to re-evaluate my goals and priorities?

Giving myself boundaries and guidelines to help have a less stressful list of to-do’s is a great first step, but if I don’t figure out the root of my behavior (which is a repeated, constant behavior for as long as I can remember)… I’ll just keep coming back to lists and expectations that stress me out.

#4- I will embrace MOST, ALMOST, EFFORT, and each moment. I give myself permission, starting right now, to do my best and not stress about the rest. I am not everything I want to be right now. But I am working towards being better and more efficient. I am moving towards accomplishing my goals. I need to pat myself on the back, just like I pat my people on the back. I need to be proud of myself, to love myself better, and to just be ok with the kitchen being dirty sometimes… a shiny countertop and empty dishwasher are not reflections of my value, therefore a sticky countertop and a sink full of dishes are also not reflections of my value.

A to-do list that I can actually complete, being ok with not getting everything done, paying attention to why I do things, celebrating my partial victories and being proud of what I do get done.

OK… I got this. I may need to reread this a few times. But I’ve got this.