What happens if I’m not perfect?

What happens if I’m not perfect?

Nothing.

Nothing happens if I’m not perfect. Obviously. Because I’m not perfect.

I missed a day of publishing for the first time since I committed to writing every day again.

Woke up this morning. Realized it. Felt sad and disappointed. Then remembered how truly special yesterday was.

I will remember the highlights of yesterday far longer than I’ll remember not publishing a post, and I’m perfectly ok with that.

What if I already broke my commitments for the New Year?

With 100% certainty, I know that there are people who broke their New Year’s resolutions already this year. Day 2 and done. Oh well, maybe next year.

I know because I have been one of those folks.

It was perfection or nothing.

“I already blew it. I’ll start next year, or next month, or next week, later, tomorrow.” A constant cycle of breaking integrity with myself, justifying and waiting for a fresh start.

Yesterday, I had one of the worst headaches of my life out of nowhere. Perhaps a somatic reminder of when I used to drink and be hung over all day New Years. My New Year’s Day plans went out the window.

Instead of waiting until next year and letting my perfectionist derail everything, I just let it go. This is a journey, I’m not perfect and today is a new day.

What happens when I miss a step?

This morning I was rushing to get out of my parents' house to catch a bus up to NYC. I missed the bottom step of the stairs that I've walked down thousands of times in my life and down I went. Hard.

What happens when I miss a step?

I end up on my ass.

When I realize what happened, I did a quick check to recalibrate, make sure nothing was broken or injured, laughed it off and then kept going.

Why am I sharing this?

Because I have many conversations with people who are so worried that they have to be perfect.

It is easy to get caught up in this mindset. If I make one wrong step, it could ruin everything. There is real fear behind this. We've seen it happen on social media countless times. It's a part of our culture these days just as much as gifs and tik tok (can't wait to see how this reference ages in a few years).

When we are fearful that one wrong step could derail our entire lives, we don't ever take that next step.

We become stagnant. We don't move. We freeze. We allow the fear to run the show.

It's no way to live.

If we want to achieve the greatness and impact we desire in this lifetime, we have to take steps each and every day knowing that some days we're going to miss a step. We have to trust in our abilities and reflexes to keep us safe and allow us to quickly recover.

Even with the misstep and wipeout this morning, I still made the bus, my day will go on, and in very short order it will be like it never happened. On to the next one.