Wednesday, March 7, 2012

Aim for Progression, Not Perfection!

As I told you in my State of Life Address, I have been lending my heart and mind to FAR too many things.  In turn, I have found myself completely stressed, emotionally exhausted, and physically rundown.

As I try to pick and choose where to invest my heart, I have learned a few things about myself.

In a conversation with some friends of ours, my friend Robbie pointed out that I am a perfectionist.  When I quickly corrected him letting him know that my life is RARELY in order his response left me silent.  He said,

"No, not like that.  You are a perfectionist in that if you have 10 things to do and you only complete 6, you scrap the whole day.  It's all or nothing for you."

Wow.  I had never thought of it that way. 

Just that night, they had shown up 15 minutes early for dinner; the house wasn't ready, I had no makeup on, the kids weren't completely dressed, and I hadn't vacuumed under the table.  Those points CONSUMED my brain.  I spent the first hour apologizing for this, that, and everything else instead of seeing the fact we were enjoying each others company and about to sit down to a great dinner.  HELLO!?!?!  I'm missing the big picture here!

He went on to say that we should be going for Progression, NOT Perfection.  By aiming for perfection, I do not acknowledge the progress that I have made, therefore putting me right back to square one.  But, if I would just acknowledge and accept the progression that was made, be it a lot or a little, I can then pick up where I left off and keep moving.  It leaves room for learning rather than complete disappointment and standstill.

Maybe I am not quick to learn these things but MAN, that made so much sense to me!

This really got me thinking.  How often do we as mom's talk about what we need to work on and how we aren't doing enough?  Now, how often do we have conversations about how well we are doing?  It's backwards!  While it is good to be aware of our shortcomings and work to improve them, when it's all that we focus on, we start aiming for perfection and losing sight of our progression.

I, for one, will never be perfect.  I will never do everything right or have everything done.  Quite frankly, if I do, it's probably at the expense of my husband and children...NOT WORTH IT! 

I am a work in progress.  To ignore such progress is to ignore the journey.  If we ignore the journey, we'll never reach true perfection which can only be found in Heaven.

Now THAT is an 'Ah-Ha' moment!


2 comments:

  1. This is a great post--thank you so much for reminding me that we're all doing our best! Rather than talk negatively about what I'm NOT doing,I should focus on all that I AM doing....instead of apologizing over and over for a mess or being late or whatever it is, I can say, you know what? I take care of an awesome little boy every day, make his food, and have a happy husband--I must be doing something right. :)

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  2. Definitely, nothing can be perfect. We can just progress for better thing.

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