I’m not perfect. Sometimes I can’t balance it all. I hate to admit it, because often I can, and certainly I’m seen as someone who can get it done and be counted on to do so. Yet sometimes life is too crazy. I have a 4.5 yr old and an almost 9 month old, a husband, a full time job, my acupuncture practice, my business, my wellness center business, and somewhere in there I’m supposed to be writing a book or two, finding time to read, connect with nature, and do the other things that help me stay sane.
About 3 months ago, I got the message that I was supposed to sell my house and upgrade to a nicer one. It sounded nice in theory but I wondered, really God? Why now? Can this wait a little bit? If you don’t know, selling a house and buying a new one is pretty much a full time job. See above for all the stuff I was already balancing. So something had to give. I had to admit to myself that it was too much to do it all.
So I gave up this blog for a little while. I knew I would get back to it, and I knew it would be okay. Yet every few days, I would stress for a few minutes about how I hadn’t written anything. Then I would have to talk myself out of it and remind myself that I am human and it was ok to push back my deadlines I had set for myself for the launch of the new cleanse, and to not worry about this blog.
I now sit here writing to you in my new home. It’s bigger and beautiful and even has a pool. I’m super clear that we needed to upgrade at the time we did. I have always had faith, and still I have a hard time not beating myself up. Why do I hold myself to an unrealistic standard?
I think I’m not alone in this. Many of us entrepreneurs especially fall into this trap. We see so and so who can sell anything and make it look easy. They’re living their dream, with beautiful homes, huge communities that regularly engage with them and each other, and seemingly everything they could want. We expect to put the product we love so dearly out there and it will magically be well received and we will be instantly famous and doing our part to help the world. But we don’t pay attention to the fact that it took that entrepreneur 10 years of consistent work and community building to get to the place where they are now. That that person taught workshops for many years for free. That they consistently wrote blog posts every single week for years to get that engaged community.
Or maybe you are jealous of someone you know or a celebrity and the life they lead. Overnight success stories are very rare. The timing is not up to us, but we must put in the work and be clear on our vision. Then we need to be gentle with ourselves along the way. That’s the part I sometimes forget. There might be typos, missed weeks or delayed posts, or ideas that fail. If we are motivated by the message we are here to deliver in the world, then we owe it to ourselves to do what we can to put it out there and know we are not perfect. As one of my mentors says, done is better than perfect. The perfectionist in me cringes to type that, but we must keep moving. This blog post is not perfect. I’m not going to take hours to review it and sit on it. I have to get my message out there. So ask yourself…what in your life do you need to stop sitting on because you’re thinking it’s not perfect? Where can you be more gentle with yourself in your life?
xo,
Jen
my new pool 🙂
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