prompt: what label/story/box/belief clipped your wings this year? how can you flip the script next year? what’s your new story?
well, lucky me, i already wrote a post about this. you can read the whole thing, but i’ll paste the relevant bits below:
so here is something i’ve learned. i don’t have to be anything. i don’t have to be a fashionista or a gourmet cook. i don’t have to wear makeup or heels. it doesn’t make me less of anything – as a matter of fact, it only makes me more authentic to stay true to what i want. i don’t have to be sweet, i don’t have to be a neat freak, i don’t have to have starry eyes for this city. i don’t have to have the most organized budget. i don’t have to cross every item off of every list – i don’t have to schedule every second. i don’t even have to exercise. i don’t have to be the wittiest, the funniest, the deepest writer.
just because it’s great and works for other people, and is admirable, does not mean that it’s a requirement in order to succeed as a human.
the pressure i’ve put on myself, you’d think the world would rip at its seams if i was not everything.
but it is not true. it is a lie.
and by extending myself and my efforts into things that aren’t me, i’ve dishonored what i am. what we are, at the very end of the day, is all we’ve really got.
i don’t have to be what i’m not, and i don’t have to be everything. it’s a rather revolutionary concept in my little universe.
these beliefs have torn me. i spend more time than i’d like to admit either running frantic or with my head in my hands, disappointed that i’m not living up to some idea, that i’m not doing it right. i worry – i worry so much and so hard that even OTHER type a people stare at me wide-eyed and tell me to calm down. i snap, i break, so much of the time i am brittle. and i don’t want it anymore.
next year? next year i vow to be exactly what i am, and honor and love that. i vow to not place the weight of the world on forty three categories of self improvement, and to take things at a reasonable rate. to pick out some of what i am, and to admire that, rather than fret about what i’m not – and to not feel guilty about it. to examine and inspect everything that looks like it might be a neat way to be, and decide honestly if it really works for me. to be ok with, to adore, everything that is sitting here right now. because it actually is enough.
Thank you. I really needed to read this today. I constantly feel like I’m falling short. I compare myself to everyone else and they all seem to be doing so much better than I am. I can barely keep all my balls in the air. I struggle with feeling like a failure. It’s nice to know I’m not alone.
when i first wrote this post it resonated with other people as well. i think it’s amazing how the internet can connect us and help us form a community. welcome, and thank you so much for reading and commenting.
I feel the same way too. It is hard not to. There are so many things I want to do, see, experience, accomplish and yet there’s not enough time in a day. There’s not enough me. There’s never enough but that’s okay. One thing at a time. I am learning to just be in the moment and appreciate it rather than beat myself up for not doing all the things I would like to do. I am a people pleaser and when I feel like I’ve let someone down, I beat myself up for it. I feel like I’m never good enough. I’m trying to get over that feeling too. Great post…as auntiekim said, I am glad I’m not alone…Thank you.
As someone who is also afflicted with the particles of crazy that want to take on everything, I know this intimately. So I know what an effort it can be to talk yourself into less. Sometimes it gets easier and then other times it floods back.
Every day you manage to beat it back, you win a little.