You’re Effing Perfect

Life has ups and downs. If I’m honest days or hours have ups and downs. When my now 14 year old was a baby I attended baby group with parents of newborns. Each week we would meet and talk about baby stuff which included going around and stating our highs and lows for the week. Naturally, it was fun and tough.

We celebrated when one baby slept through the night and empathized when another baby battled yet another ear infection (usually mine). Mostly though we realized that everyone has good and bad times and we aren’t alone. It was a wonderful practice and an amazing sense of community.

Recently, I completed 6 months of career coaching. When I started I thought it would be like a sports coach telling me what to do and what not to do. There was maybe a tiny bit of that but pretty much it was “what do you want to work on” and “how do you think you can accomplish that” or “what steps can you take to get there” etc. Thankfully I was warned this is how it would go down. I definitely felt ownership of my plan, actions, and (thrillingly) accomplishments.

Each week the coach would ask “What are you proud of?” After a couple weeks I knew to expect the question so prepared ahead with my answer. Similar to baby group highs and lows it was a great time to reflect on what went well in a week. Too often we don’t take a minute to recognize a job well done and mark growth. That’s a practice I plan to continue through setting a weekly reminder on my calendar.

This life all boils down to knowing there are good and bad moments. The good ones are so much sweeter because we live through the bad ones. I work on pausing to take a breath before reacting in effort to control what I can of the bad moments and recognize some things can’t be avoided. I work on knowing everyone has these moments in their own way just most people don’t talk about it.

We’re pretty good at recognizing when we are in a bad moment. Not so great at stopping and soaking in a good moment. You planned and lead a great meeting. You took a minute to take the stairs instead of the elevator. You cooked dinner. You meditated for 2 minutes. You walked your dog. Think about it, you did something awesome and should be proud of it.

Breathe life in, sigh the shit out. You’re fucking perfect to me. Listen to P!nk tell it like it is.