..and everything else has to take priority.
It’s not fun. Let me tell you. I’ve been re-reading Gina and Jaydon’s story for weeks just to remind myself what’s going on in their lives so that I can stay consistent with where I want them to go. Plus, you know, edits. Lots and lots of edits.
But I can’t seem to get the time to sit and finish the story as quickly as I want to. Does that ever happen to you? You’ve got this nice long goals list, or…wait for it…New Year’s Resolutions (gag, choke, puke) that you’re ready to commit to and raring to go. And then? BAM! Life happens.
You get sick. The kids get sick. Oh, and there’s work. The house. Dinner, every night. Activities and chaos and and and and and–whew!
You know what I’m talking about.
So here’s another reminder for all my fellow recovering perfectionists out there. Let it go (shut up, Elsa, I hate you). But seriously, it’s okay to let go of those icky, stressed out feelings that are keeping you from achieving those goals. The rigidity that comes with perfectionism says it’s all-or-nothing, success or fail. But that is a LIE. The truth is, there is peace in the balance. There actually is a middle ground, a place where you’re mostly succeeding and not letting the little shortcomings derail you–remembering that the small things really are small things.
A heads up for those of you who are not perfectionists (you lucky schmucks) but are probably married or related to one, that overachievers are more likely to be procrastinators and feel really, really guilty for breaking those resolutions or not completing our lists. And the anxiety that comes with those failures sucks. It makes us annoying jerks who snip and snap at everyone around us, and when you point and laugh (I can admit that from the outside, perfectionist freak outs are pretty amusing) it only reminds us that we’ve screwed up and heaven forbid we’ve had a witness to a failure.
Thank God for maturity, though. If my thirties have taught me anything, it’s that life happens and I’m much happier if I just roll with it as it comes. It’s a struggle, I’ll admit, when my first nature is to stress out and get annoyed with myself for not being superhuman enough to accomplish it all.
Like Brynn in my first book, I have to remember that “Many are the plans in a person’s heart, but it is the Lord’s purpose that prevails” (Prov. 19:21 NIV). As long as I am keeping my eyes on the One who knows what needs to happen where and when, then things really will fall into place. Like Ecclesiastes 3 says, to everything there is a time and a season.
Today, it’s my time to work on my website, social media, and getting things updated. Tomorrow it’s a day of substitute teaching and shuttling children. This weekend it’ll be family time and taking care of the house. But Monday? Six hours of writing. A full, dedicated day to do what I both want AND need to do.
So I encourage you–when you’re overwhelmed by the failures and breaking resolutions and the pace of life going too fast for you to squeeze it all in–relax, let go of the frustrations, and remind yourself that the balance feels better than the stress. Because you’re going to get done what you can, when you can, and stressing out and treating everyone around you like crap isn’t going to help anything. You may as well enjoy the highs and lows, because that’s where you’ll find the balance. It’s resting, even in the pursuit.
