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A new year is a time for resolutions. I’ll be honest, I haven’t made one in years because I know I won’t manage to do it perfectly and I really don’t need one more thing in my life to feel like a failure about. Yep, that’s right, I often feel like a failure. You may have noticed that I didn’t put a blog post out in months. I didn’t know what to write about. I was suffering from some really big imposter syndrome. Who am I to tell you all how to find your muchness? who am I to think I can help other women feel good about themselves? Who am I to give parenting, relationship, life, etc. advice? I’m not perfect. Nowhere near it. Why should any of you want to listen to me?
This has been a problem for e my whole life. I had a paradigm that if I wasn’t the best then I was a failure. “2nd place is just first place loser!” Rather than making me super competitive, however, this mindset made me a quitter. Worse than that if I didn’t think I could excel at something right off the bat then I wouldn’t even try. I talked about this a little in my post “I Am an Artist“. Despite my love and desire to create beautiful things I avoided trying for YEARS because I was afraid of being bad at it. Fact is we are ALL going to be bad at things. You can’t become good if you aren’t willing to start out by being bad. I have been working on adjusting my mindset to appreciate where I am in the journey instead of focusing on my failure to reach the ideal destination I have created in my mind.
In the CreativeLive class “Designing Your Life: How to Build a Well-Lived, Joyful Life” one of the instructors said (sorry didn’t write down who it was and there are two teachers lol) “Life is not a problem to be solved, it is an adventure to be lived.” That really struck a nerve with me. I’ve been so busy trying to solve the problems of my life that I have forgotten to enjoy the adventure of the journey. That is why this blog exists. It isn’t here so that I can put on my pretty perfect face and tell you all how to be perfect too. This blog exists because I NEED to share my hot mess with you and know that it’s ok. It’s so I can share my journey and maybe encourage you a little bit in yours. It’s here so that I can create a community of vulnerability where women can connect in our brokenness, embrace it, and make it beautiful.
My husband and I were talking the other night and the conversation got a bit rough. We were discussing how and why him asking me to do something different or make a small improvement would send me into a tailspin of self-doubt and feeling like a failure. We’re talking little things here ladies like “can we please make sure all the dishes get rinsed before they get put in the dirty sink so that they don’t attract flies?” Totally reasonable request right? Well my logical brain totally agrees with you. However my emotional brain hijacks the conversation and turns it into “You know you’re a really crappy homemaker right? I can’t believe you can’t figure out how to keep flies out of our kitchen. this house is so disgusting? What do you seriously do all day? Did anything get done?” Yeah. Not exactly what he was saying. In fact not even close. I still haven’t identified exactly why my brain goes there. I know part of it is traumas I have suffered in my adult life, but I also recognize that this has been a problem for me since I was young, for example me refusing to try to be an artist.
This is why my word of the year is Enough. I am enough. Where I am in my journey is enough. What I have accomplished is enough. Despite my “failures” I am still enough. This year I want to focus on recognizing where I am in the journey and appreciating it. Looking back and recognizing my progression. Looking forward with excitement for what I can become instead of dread at what I haven’t achieved. Enough doesn’t mean I’ve settled or no longer try to progress. It simply means being ok with where I am while continuing to move forward in this grand adventure.
The perfectionist me wanted to make a beautiful hand drawn graphic for this post. I’m still a newbie to pointed pen calligraphy and definitely haven’t achieved that level of “perfection” that I tend to expect from myself. As I sat practicing all my letters trying to create the perfect image I realized the irony of what I was doing. Here I am talking about being happy with where I am, yet hating how my letters just weren’t forming the way I wanted. So here’s my first celebration of living my word. Instead of a beautiful graphic you get to see my practice pad. I am celebrating where I am, and looking forward to what I can achieve as I practice some more.
Do you have a word of the year? Please share it in the comments below. I’d love to hear what you’re focusing on. Then come join our community on Facebook to get in on the discussion of how we can support each other in fulfilling our intentions this year.
My word for the year is ‘SIMPLIFY’.
My life has become CRAZY busy with school, motherhood, now my grandparents are moving in with me. There’s so much chaos in my life. Physical chaos with too much STUFF just lying around, or schedules being complex. Mental chaos, because I think I have to do everything and perfectly at that. Then there’s my emotional chaos. These are my moments of hopelessness, helplessness, worry, self-doubt, fear, anxiety, depression… the list goes on and on. I realized that my life needed to be streamlined and simplified. I’m trying to do too much all the time. I’m learning to say no and only allow those things that serve me to enter in. This isn’t about being selfish and that I’m not going to help someone else, rather, I’m not going to put myself out to help others, when I’m the one that needs help. I hope that makes sense. I need to have my needs met first, before I can successfully help someone else.
Here’s to the new year and focusing my time, and talents on simplifying ALL aspects of my life.
Of course it makes sense. Self Care is NOT selfish!!