I tend to live with idealistic views of how my life should look and the things I should accomplish on a daily basis. These ideals are often lofty and therefore, hard to achieve which leaves me feeling like nothing I do is ever enough. If I have 25 things on my to-do list for the day but only finish 20 of them, I see myself as a failure rather than celebrating those things I did accomplish. I know what I am capable of, which is why I set my expectations so high. The detail I tend to forget is that I am a fallible human and cannot perform at 110% during each and every moment of my life.
These feelings of “nothing I do is ever enough” spill over into almost every area of my life. My house is never clean enough. I don’t spend enough time training Bentley. I don’t exercise enough. I don’t read enough. The list goes on and on. Nothing I ever do is perfect and therefore, is never enough. My feelings of inadequacy culminated tonight and resulted in a soggy pile of emotional Kelsey. Always a fun situation.
After pouring out my feelings of “never doing enough” I was reminded that the goals I set are not there to make me feel like a failure. The goal of striving each day to be a better version of who I am there to do just that: continually strengthen my weaknesses, but not create a perfect person (because…impossible). At some point, setting expectations at unattainable heights does more harm than good. For example...exercise is supposed to relieve stress and bring balance. However, in Kelsey’s world, we stress so much about the number of days we skipped this week that it completely degrades the wonderful days I did get my sweat on. I expect so much of myself every single day, and the smallest “failure” sets me back further than is logically reasonable.
With this brilliant revelation, I realized I needed to do one of two things. I could either lower what I expect of myself OR handle the inevitable shortcomings with more grace and poise than I have previously demonstrated. I have chosen the latter option mainly because it seems like the easiest solution, and also because I need to be a more gracious person throughout every area of my life. Two birds and such. Another reason is that I do not think that the issue stems from expecting much of myself but rather my reaction to the perceived failures.
I will continue to write freakishly detailed to-do lists, but I will focus on what I cross off each day, not on what is left over. I will strive to make it to the gym as much as possible, but remind myself that dem gainz don’t disappear in a day. I will train Bentley, but not expect him to join search and rescue. I will read my books because I love them, not because it’s a requirement. I will celebrate the victories. I will accept my shortcomings. I will not stop pushing myself to be the best version of Kelsey that I can be.
I will remind myself that I AM enough.
"We should not judge people [or ourselves] by their peak of excellence; but by the distance they have traveled from the point where they started." -Henry Ward Beecher