There are times in life you have to give yourself props for just surviving.

I’m something of a perfectionist.  That means I’m pretty hard on myself almost all the time. Oh, I can be the most understanding and laid back person with other people… pretty accepting and understanding of quirks and foibles.  But when it comes to myself, boy, do I expect a lot.

Perfection.

It’s inevitable I fall short sometimes… hell, to be honest, lots of times.  Times when I can see the potholes in my road, but for whatever reason, I can’t seem to alter the path I’m walking. And, more often, times when I look back and wish with all my heart that I had chosen another route all together.

Maybe you’re lucky and you never feel this type of regret. The kind of regret that can wake you up in the middle of the night with tears running down your face, wondering why you didn’t just do better… if you’ve never felt this, I’m pleased for you (and more than a little jealous)… but if this sounds familiar, I wanna share a little secret I’ve learned.

Sometimes you have to just be thankful you made it through to the other side.

Maybe you didn’t handle things the best way. Maybe you cowered when you should have fought, or fought when you should have turned the other cheek. Maybe you pretended that you didn’t see how something was going wrong or lied to yourself.

It happens.  To everyone.

Seriously, it happens to EVERYONE.  Even the most perfect seeming person has slipped a time or two (or ten), even if they look like butter wouldn’t melt in their mouths.

What I’ve done in the past (and sometimes still slip into) is get so fixated on what I SHOULD HAVE done that I keep myself from moving forward.

It’s like those conversations where you didn’t get the right response out when the conversation was happening… so you find yourself replaying the conversation over and over again, fixing what you said until it sounds just right.

Before you know it, you’ve wasted all kinds of time, made yourself crazy… and you still haven’t changed a thing.

And then, if you’re as bad as me, you turn around and beat up on yourself because you wasted all that time on something you can’t change. 

Let’s stop the crazymaking cycle, ok?

Next time you see it starting, go find a mirror… look yourself in the eye and say “Self, okay… so we didn’t handle that the best way. So we should have turned around, never been so stupid, made a U-turn… the fact is, we were doing the best we could at the time. What’s most important is that we made it to the other side.”

And then congratulate yourself for that.  Trust me… You deserve it.

“Courage doesn’t always roar. Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying, “I will try again tomorrow.” – Mary Ann Radmacher