“Have no fear of perfection—you’ll never reach it,” Salvador Dali.  When I look over the course of my life in the context of this quote, I feel a sort of melancholy.  It’s simultaneously an acceptance that all is as it should be (and went how it was supposed to) and a sadness over time lost.  That is where it gets a bit bitter.  My head gets caught in the time lost, because I spent YEARS of my life trying to be perfect, always trying to make the right decision and do the right thing, always searching for the thing that would get me where I wanted to go the fastest.  I feel sad because there is always that, “If only it went this way, it would have been fine,” all while knowing I can’t change anything about the past.

I know I’m not alone in feeling that way.  But I also know the lesson I’m supposed to learn is that even if things aren’t perfect, they are perfect how they happen.  That gives me some level of comfort to reframe that I did the best I could with what I had and with what I knew.  Yes, it’s painful knowing things could have been different but I also take comfort in knowing they CAN’T be.  Nature takes care of itself and if it was meant to go any other way, it would have.  So the sooner we develop an understanding that perfection is an illusion regardless of the standard we set, the sooner we will be able to move through life content that our best is enough.  We are taught that perfection makes us worthy because society wants us to forget that we are perfect as is.   

As sick as it is, I love that Dali puts fear and perfection together—because the fear isn’t about being perfect, it’s about being “kicked out” because we aren’t perfect.  We’ve always had this expectation of outward perfection in society and the fear is that if we aren’t perfect, we aren’t worthy of acceptance.  So when we learn that it’s unattainable anyway and we KNOW that everyone is inherently flawed, we suddenly realize that perfection is a myth.  It’s so much easier to go through life knowing we aren’t meant to be perfect—we are meant to live.  And life is messy, but that is exactly what it’s meant to be.  Creation isn’t clean and we are always creating something. 

So take the pressure off and don’t shoot for perfection—just go for what is you.  Go for authenticity and fun and what brings you joy.  Because your joy will inspire more creation that perfection ever could.  Setting an unattainable goal makes it that much easier to give up on it when it isn’t turning out how you thought it would.  But when we set our sights on what is right and what we know is true for us, it is much easier to stick with it and be proud of those results.  Authenticity beats perfection any day.

“I am a slow walker, but I never walk back,” Abraham Lincoln.  I saw this randomly after completing the piece about asking directions and I felt it was appropriate.  In this life we are constantly being brought up to make quick decisions.  We are connected all the time and the world moves 24/7.  It goes against everything in us to slow down and consider what our next step is.  We take the leap and much of the time we will land just fine.  We will be able to make a decision (or another leap) from that point and we continue doing that, always forced to maintain momentum. 

There’s another way.  Taking the time to calculate what the goal is and weigh what our actions can yield often reaps greater rewards.  I’m not saying there isn’t a time to take the leap and just go for it—I preach it ALL the time.  But I am saying even that leap needs to be intentional.  Wildly jumping in the air flapping your arms doesn’t mean you will fly.  Sometimes you have to climb to the top of the mountain to catch the right wind to soar. 

Being intentional means that you let the extraneous go.  The noise, the opinions, the fears, the “shoulds”—you drop all of it.  It’s unnecessary baggage and all of that comes from the outside anyway.  It’s all distraction.  Intentional also means you make the choice and you stick with it.  Granted you will need to pivot along the way—that is just life—but you stay the path.  You make your decision because you know it to be valid and true and you keep that course.  Sometimes you need to check your inner map and that means consulting what you know is true inside.  You don’t seek outside interference from people who aren’t going where you are.   

The last point of this is essentially no regrets.  Not only do we stick with our choices, we don’t lament them.  Honestly, there is no need to if you’re able to live those choices with integrity and pivot as needed.  When we talk about staying the course, it isn’t about a stubborn will to make what you want happen.  It’s about knowing the path you want to take and sticking with it through all the curves and bends.  It’s learning how to navigate the twists rather than bulldozing a straight line through territory you’re not meant to go.  If you are able to do that, there will be no desire to look back.  You won’t need to retrace your steps because you will end up exactly where you need to be.  So break the patterns and go slow.  Evaluate your next step and plan so the leaps will take you as far as you need to go.  Then go for it.

“This life is mine alone so I have stopped asking people for directions to places they’ve never been,” Glennon Doyle.  The first thing I want to talk about is that if you’re inspired to build something, don’t let someone talk you out of it because they are familiar to you (family, friends, etc.).  Those closest to us will try to keep us as they know us.  Those who don’t know us will try to fit us in their box, defining us by what they know.  The other day I wrote about the trees I saw entwined and it reminds me of this as well: just because things don’t look a certain way doesn’t mean it isn’t how it’s supposed to be.  The other side to this is sometimes you have to go places that other people don’t.  It may feel lonely, but we have a path laid out for us.

Sometimes we just have to embrace who we are whether others embrace that or not.  We need to have the confidence to be who we are because we know what we are doing is meant to be, rather than allow someone to push us in a direction that is more comfortable for them.  We also have to TRUST that we are guided where we are meant to be.  No one can tell you where you are supposed to go—that is a contract you signed when you came here.  You know the fine print, you just need to remember.

We are SO trained to do what we are told and to go with the crowd because that is where we are safe.  The known keeps us safe.  For people relying on the safety of familiarity (for whatever reason), they won’t look outside of their comfort zone to see where you are going.  Taking that step off the path can be terrifying, but when we are called to do it, we feel it so deeply that we know we have to.  So, when you hear that voice, don’t ask anyone about it.  Trust that it is a sign and follow.  I mean, let’s be clear I’m not talking about recklessly abandoning your life and those around you.  I’m talking about honoring what you know is true and following that curiosity to see where it brings you.

I mentioned trust above and I want to emphasize how important it is to trust ourselves.  I know I want to bring everyone with me—my husband, my friends, my family—but I have to accept that they will follow their own paths.  I also have to accept that they want me to go with them as well and that my path may not go the same route as theirs.  While this is out of love, sometimes we have to just let each other go our own way.  We will always find each other again, but we need to experience certain things on our own.  We are all given instinct for a reason—we aren’t meant to rely on someone else to drive us where we need to go.  We are meant to forge a path of our own and to show others how to do that as well.  So stop asking people for directions when YOU are holding the map.

So, I did something highly out of character for myself.  I read “Rich Dad, Poor Dad” by Robert Kiyosaki and the timing just so happened to coincide with a woman reaching out to me regarding a new business.  Truly, I had no interest in it since I’m working full time and starting my own business as well.  Plus the type of work she was suggesting isn’t something I’m really interested in.  But as I was reading the book, there was a line about the type of work we should try in order to learn new skills.  It was the EXACT type of work that this woman was reaching out to me about.  So in a show of faith and with the intention of learning  the skills that the universe clearly wants me to have, I dove in and said yes.

It has been highly uncomfortable.  I’m doing things and reaching out to people about things I’m not even familiar with and I’m working with products I normally don’t discuss with others.  But there is something underneath that I admit feels good.  There is definitely a camaraderie I’ve never experienced before and I’m learning self-promotion skills I thought were a bit much before.  Now I see those skills will carry me in my own business as well.  I’m still not sure if this is something that will “turn out” for me, but it is something that will teach me. I realized that I had been given this opportunity several times before and I turned it down because of other things going on, but it came back into my life this time for a reason.       

Sometimes the universe brings lessons into your life repeatedly because you are MEANT to figure it out.  I had been so resistant to this in my life that I never saw myself doing something like this and here I am.  Things come to you at the right time.  As I worked today, I found myself looking around my office feeling really grateful that I was trying something new even though I’m terrified. I started imagining my life looking a bit different.  Spending my day with people, reading all of my books and using those to share my message with others.  To really define my base and take that information out into the world as I’ve been trying to help people find their way.  I needed to find my own way.  My entire body got warm.

I’m excited to share some of the new things I’m learning with you and I’m excited to be out of my comfort zone.  That is truly where growth happens, and I’ve preached it a million times.  I’m glad to try it now.  We talked the other week about how sometimes the very thing you don’t want to do is exactly what you need to do.  So I’m leaning in and leaping forward to see where this brings me.  What are you taking the chance on today?

“It’s all connected.  The voice within and the sound of the wind,” via the univershasyourback.  This is just the briefest of reminders that you have to pause.  You have to listen to everything you hear.  You have to know that those signs are meant for you.  You have to know your power is real.  You have to know that you are here for a reason and you can do it no matter what it looks like.  There is no doubt in my mind of the connection we have to each other.  We are part of nature and we are animals so we play a part in everything whether we see it play out or not.  Remember the connection we have, and as I always say, remember the connection to yourself first.  Those messages mean something and that whisper inside is dying for you to hear it.  Hear it before it’s a scream.  Stop drowning it out so it doesn’t go silent.  Listen, ask it questions, believe it.

When we feel those certain moments of connectedness and love, we have no choice but to remember who we are…and that we are all one.  There is no separation.  We created that from some primal need to be dominant, to be right, and to survive.  We still have those urges because biologically we want to survive and propagate, but we have turned it into pissing contests of ego.  We are all the same and we have to remember who we are.  More importantly, we have to remember WHAT we are: LOVE.  There are vibrations in this world that allow us to connect and resonate with each other, and that frequency is love.  We’ve taught ourselves to be selective in how we use that, but it is meant for everyone.  What you hear within is the message you project to the world.  Release the fear, release the ego and just live.     

I adore synchronistic reminders that there is magic in this universe.  I just finished Martha Beck’s book, The Way of integrity, Finding the Path to Your True Self.  At the end of the book she discusses experiences of enlightenment in a visceral sense and it absolutely fascinated me.  I truly believe in enlightenment and I believe everyone’s experience of it is different.  I believe that we all have an awakening but it looks and feels different and has a different purpose for each of us.  I do not profess to be enlightened myself, however, I’ve had those moments when epiphanies have struck and I knew I was given a truth that I could never ignore again.  When they have happened, I could feel the energy shift in my body but I never associated that with enlightenment or with a universal connection—I just took it at as a lesson.  But Beck described an energetic vibration that I instantly recognized in her description.  And I recognized it again because I had read about it years ago in The Celestine Series. 

This struck me to my core because when I read The Celestine Series, there is a description of feeling connected to the universe that Beck also describes in the same way from an entirely different reference point.  They both talk about a vibration, a merging of consciousness that creates a oneness that simply IS.  It is the way of the universe, it IS the entire universe.  It is how the jumble of atoms that we are coalesce into who we are and it is how we decide to love different jumbles of atoms.  But what struck me as I read those words last night was the simple truth of it.  For multiple people to describe it that way solidified in my mind that it is the truth.  When you feel something to the core, there is a vibration in your body and I FELT it—goosebumps and all. 

So…feeling that connection and that realization of the truth between consciousness and oneness and the power of the universe led me to another truth: that living in Integrity is the only way to go. Now, I speak about this all the time but it is amazing to have it reinforced.  After the experience I had this week at work and allowing myself to align on Friday, I felt it again.  Sometimes we have to let go of all expectations and all demands and all plans and simply Be.  Connect with the truth of what is happening in the moment and let everything else go.  It can be scary and disorienting, but you know it when you feel it.  And it all starts with truth.

When beck talks about Integrity, she talks about it structurally.  I used to look at integrity as doing the right thing, but it is more than that.  It’s about doing the right thing for you.  It’s about functioning and acting from your truth.  When we are aligned with our truth and who we are, we are able to spark that in other people as well.  The more honest we are and the more honesty we inspire in others, the more truth we create in the world.  And I know this can be scary because it means, for many of us, that we aren’t able to live as we were.  That how we live isn’t what we are meant to do.  And when we get really honest, it may mean that we were doing things we really didn’t want to do anyway.  So when we find ourselves in that situation, come back to your own integrity and stand in the truth of who you are.  That is how we build authenticity no matter how vulnerable we are.  And we learn and build and we create ourselves.  And then we realize that there is no self…we are all one.  That may be a topic for another day 😊

Today I am grateful for family.  My husband and son and I went out with some extended family for an early dinner and we shared some laughs and memories and it was such a nice reminder of times we used to spend together years ago.  It was a nice reminder of what is important and that in order to keep that closeness, effort is required—but it is amazing effort and totally worthwhile.  The time we have with those we love, even if we don’t get to see them often, is so valuable and precious.  Don’t take it for granted.

Today I am grateful for friends.  I adore my family but there is something to be said with the friends we make family.  We only moved here a few months ago and we have been so fortunate to meet some incredible neighbors who quickly took us in.  My husband and I have gotten out of our shells and we are reaching out differently and opening up differently with friends and with each other.  It’s nice to have another outlet to help channel life and to experience life in a new way. 

Today I am grateful for decisions.  This past week was particularly rough at work—highly emotional and energetically draining.  But it put things in perspective.  I realized that I have more control over my life and it served to show that I don’t need permission. By the time Friday hit, I felt differently.  I looked at the frustrations that I had been having all week and I made the choice to move forward on my own regardless of what other people thought.  Once I took those tasks head on, things changed.  I felt better.  It was taking small steps to deal with what was in front of me that made the difference.

Today I am grateful for perspective.  I’m always obsessing about time and afraid of running out the clock.  And I realized that time feels incredibly overwhelming to me because I take on so much.  I’m overly ambitious and take on a lot because I want to accomplish a lot.  Part of that is a self-worth thing where I have always tried to find my worth in outside accomplishments and I realized that I’m not able to do it all.  And then I realized that it’s ok.  It matters more to do a few things well rather than a lot of things half-assed.  The focus is key.  Once that shifted, and after making decisions on Friday, I realized that time slows down when you are working toward something specific.  All of the things I need will come when they are meant to as long as I am doing my part.

Today I am grateful for clarity.  It became super clear to me this weekend where applied clarity leads to intentional action and that is where you get results.  It also ties into perspective because I was able to start chipping away at what I don’t want.  And I realized that to move forward, you have to define what you don’t want but you also can’t FOCUS on that.  You need to focus on what you DO want and that is where the magic is.  When you focus on what you do want, the things you don’t want start to fall away.  It feels amazing.

Today I am grateful for self-care. I’ve been spending too much time working on things that weren’t what I wanted to focus on and my health has taken a hit over the last six weeks or so.  I took time to take a really nice shower and to cut my hair and even put on some makeup today.  I haven’t worn makeup in over a year…and it’s not like I needed that to feel good, but taking the time to look a little better, a little time for myself is what really mattered. 

Today I am grateful for the future.  I’ve said it before and I’ve been kind of lousy for the follow through to be totally transparent.  But I legitimately realized that even though I’ve been dreaming really big and not following through accordingly, there are things I CAN do.  Each of those little things will keep moving me forward and that is what I’m looking forward to.  I know that I am able to do all of the things I want to, I just need to take a measured and focused step and that will get me much further than trying to take a giant leap in a million directions at once.  Focus is key.  How are you going to chunk your time so it’s more valuable? 

Wishing everyone a wonderful week ahead! 

Yesterday I woke up feeling absolutely…different, and I wrote about it.  Here it is:  I’m tired. Soul tired and ragged.  I’m done carrying the weight.  My work speaks for itself and I am no longer comfortable being the target of other people’s assumptions.  I’m very open and I am very sensitive to people’s needs and perceptions.  And I am done carrying that weight—my arms won’t lift it anymore.  My heart and my soul and my mind are tired.  Years of building anticipation, hoping my time for wild success would come only to never focus on it.  Trying to find more time in the day to do what I want to do, scared of losing it all, doing all I could to keep the illusion afloat.  All the while the effort spent was futile, running around the mountain yelling directions again.  I’m not sure what I want to do next yet, so I sit.  And try not to fall to the crushing depths of this…whatever this is. 

I have no control.  Control was always the illusion.  So I start with doing less.  Less of what others expect of me.  less of what I simply don’t want to do.  less anger over…everything. I wrote about finding my joy and I’ve gotten two reminders in 13 hours to do just that, find the joy.  I’m so aware of the clock running out in my life that I haven’t been living.  People have been kind and unkind to me and I’ve let those behaviors dictate my days whether they were strangers on the street, employees, or family.  But my soul has something to say and it’s time to listen: say YES when I want to and no when I want to.  Eliminate the chaos, just live. I can still be happy—I am called to be happy as we all are. 

In the midst of all of this, a mentor told me that I “really have it all together.”  I almost laughed because that is sheer will and stubbornness.  It can fall apart at any second.  Plus I’m an emotional mess (I am really working on that) so any appearance of having it together feels tenuous at best anyway.  But if I am projecting an image of having it together, I need to be grateful and remember my advantages and that I may be further along than it feels.  So maybe I just need to have a little more fun and appreciate even more.  I can get in sync by truly, finally, and completely LETTING GO.  Then I went to work.

So at work, I made some different decisions.  I didn’t wait for permission for a damn thing.  I addressed the issues I needed to on my clock and in my way and it wasn’t about control: it was about the timing and needing to level set with myself and my teams.  I focused on what I COULD do rather than what I was being told I couldn’t do.  It felt good to feel like I had some say in the day and to see things getting done.  It legitimately felt productive—and I knew that is what I had been missing.  I’ve been waiting for permission on certain things and I’ve been frustrated because some of the things I’ve been moving forward with have been discounted and ignored or I’ve been allowed to move forward with it and then told to stop so it ALL felt like wasted effort.  But yesterday felt good. 

At the same time I was dealing with a situation with my siblings over Christmas and it was normally something I wouldn’t want to deal with.  In fact, I had even told them to speak with each other.  Nonetheless, I ended up talking to both of them and any frustration I had went away.  I could hear instantly what they were really feeling…and I could FEEL it too.  I could feel the anger and the fear.  We talked through it—we didn’t get everything resolved but we had conversations we haven’t had before. 

Between that and the work situation, it felt really good to approach things head on.  I realized I’ve been wanting to avoid responsibility for things I didn’t want to do for a long time.  I don’t want to carry the burden of other people’s decisions any longer.  That’s how I martyred myself for years—and then resented everyone because I took on things I didn’t want to.  But tackling things head on felt amazing.  It was so productive and more honest.  Even when things were said that I didn’t like, I didn’t yell, I took it in and we talked.  It reminded me that sometimes the things we don’t want to do teach us a lesson we didn’t expect.  So focus on what you can do and take it as it comes.  All will work out as it’s meant to—even if it feels like it’s falling apart, we might have it more together than we think.

“Never do the envy, jealousy, and insecure stuff.  Be the hustler, well-wisher, the go-getter,” via ecommerce mentor.  When we celebrate the achievements of those around us or of those doing what we want to do, we are inviting that energy into our lives as well.  If we are attracting it, we ARE it which means we are able to make it happen.  It can be challenging to switch to this mentality, especially in a society that values competition and winning as a measure of worth and success.  But when we put aside the comparison and measuring people by what they do and where they are, we see those opportunities as well.  It’s important to recognize that.

Mel Robbins talks about jealousy in a way I’ve never heard before.  She says that if you’re jealous of something, it’s because it means something to you and you want it as well.  On the surface, that is obvious.  But digging into that a bit more, it’s telling us that being jealous means it’s awakening something inside of us that we are capable of as well.  In the context of our opening quote, we look at jealousy as something low that can drag us down, but in reality, it is something that guides us as well.  That can be a trigger to start celebrating people.  Don’t be angry with your jealousy as far as asking, “Why don’t I have that?”.  Make it about, “Wow that’s awesome, I think I can do that.”.

Converting our jealousy from victimhood to actionable ways to succeed keeps us in our lane and turns on the inspiration.  Finding joy and finding inspiration is so key in life.  It isn’t about being better than the last person, it’s about being better than you used to be.  Learn to make competition internal rather than external.  Knowing that you’ve done well and that you are capable of doing more is incredibly stimulating.  Winning the challenges we set for ourselves is a good way to keep us moving forward.

So love what you do and love what you see other people doing.  Become a cheerleader, for others and for yourself.  A win for someone else, even in an unrelated field, means that you’re on the right track as well.  We thrive when we support each other and we draw into our lives what we put out so cheering others on means we find our support system as well.  If that proves to be too challenging, start looking at your own small wins.  You woke up today without hitting snooze?  Great!  You managed to make your lunch today instead of buying?  Awesome!! You took the time to walk away from work for a minute instead of engaging that negative co-worker?  Rock On!  All of these things are progress—so be that person who goes after what they want and is happy to see others succeed as well.  The ball will come back in your court soon.  

“Don’t have a high tolerance for minimal effort,” via mindbody green.  I’ve felt an odd unsettled feeling lately.  There are different qualifiers to this one but it still struck me.  In terms of relationships, minimal effort is something I can no longer tolerate.  Whether it is my husband, or my extended family, or friends, I’ve spent years bearing the brunt of emotional baggage of those around me.  For the most part, I didn’t mind it because that’s who I am—I want to help people sort through it.  But I noticed a pattern where when I needed something in return (even support) they disappeared.  A common refrain was, “I don’t know what you want me to do.”

As I’ve branched out into other ventures in my life, some requiring more time and effort/support from others, it has been clear who is there and who isn’t.  I will account for the fact that when change happens, some people are prone to trying to pull you back into your old habits.  It isn’t always comfortable to see people move on or even move outside of the parameters/definitions they have for us.  Break them every time.  If it comes to keeping true to yourself or making other people happy, choose yourself every time.

So, an example of that is this: I recently saw my neighbor talking about his wife and her working.  He made a comment to the effect of, “She’s stubborn, she is going to keep working.”  The context is that she was still working after a full day.  It bothered me and I had to unpack what it was.  I mean, I regularly work 12 hour days between multiple businesses and my 9-5 and a million other people do too—her work ethic isn’t that different than anyone else’s.  As fate would have it, my husband made a comment that he wanted to game tonight knowing that I had work to do.  Then it hit me: every time I need to get something done or I’m trying to advance us, he finds an excuse to do something that gets in the way.  So I got mad for three reasons: 1. He stops me from focusing on my work because he isn’t helping with our kid.  2. He isn’t supportive of me trying new things to better myself and us.  3. He’s been talking about starting his own business but he isn’t taking any action toward it.  I need to make sure that I keep time on my calendar to do the things I need to do regardless of what he’s doing.  THAT is my support.

For those who refuse to be with you or offer their support, let them go.  Don’t waste your time trying to prove that you’re worthy of their support.  Wish them well and move forward with your plans.  There isn’t enough time to waste on showing other people you can do it.  You need to spend your time acting on what you say you want to do.  Distraction and fighting and spending time on emotions that don’t support you moving forward will never get you where you want to go.  Drop the weight of expectation that people will support you, drop the weight of pulling people along with you.  Let your wings unfurl and take flight, knowing that you support yourself.  Keep your boundaries no matter what it means.