“IS THAT there YOUR BEST?”

-Becky to Sara in A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett

I woke up out of a dead sleep this week and couldn’t go back to sleep. For some reason, my mind kept playing over and over the many things I have started…and not (really) finished.

Christmas cards, garden chores, answering texts and emails, laundry(ok…who really ever finishes laundry), that great marketing idea I had, those reports I had been meaning to create…the list goes on.

This picture says it all: I am dressed in my workout gear with GREAT INTENTIONS, but most days, life gets in the way before I can sweat a single bead. And the bird painting at the top…the outline was done in November and it has been sitting, unfinished on the easel ever since. 🙁

How can that be? Am I really stopping short?

It got me to thinking…am I really giving MY BEST to everything?

The real hard answer…was NO, not always. (Imagine me making the “Home Alone” face.)

I have GREAT INTENTIONS that I will come back and take care of and/or finish something later, when I:

• have more time
• more energy
• the right tools

And so on and so on.

But here is the thing…many times, more than I would like to admit, I don’t go back and take care of it. Life gets in the way, I forget, the email gets pushed down in the inbox, and the list of excuses goes on.

Holy Cow! What’s that all about? I pride myself on doing things 125%!

The truth is, it’s hard to “Do your Best” all the time! There is so much to do…and then if you are like me, you pile a million other things on your plate that make it pretty much impossible to do any of it at “your best”.

And then…the guilt comes. Anyone with me here? It eats at me, and the things left undone seem to replay in my mind like a negative movie reel of why I am “not good enough”.

My sister-in-law Gina summed it up perfectly I think:

“It’s like they keep trying to present themselves for resolution in your mind,

and when they can’t be checked off…they stick around and eat a hole in your stomach.”

UGH! I’m on a mission and ready to attack this head on, stop the insanity, take back my good night’s sleep, and save my stomach for the good stuff, like ice cream & bubbles!

Here is my plan of attack:

Step 1: Admit it…you have a problem.  

Looks like I can check that box since I just told all of you! Seriously…I HAVE A PROBLEM.

Step 2: Decide if this really needs to be on your list in the first place and give yourself permission to let some of it go. (Insert tune of Frozen “Let it go” here.)

When I really got down to making the list of the things I wasn’t doing my best on, I realized that many of them…didn’t need to be on my list in the first place. No wonder I kept putting them off or just did my best to ignore them.

Step 3: Identify the lies you may be telling yourself that might be preventing you from doing your best.

For me it is: “I’ll take care of this later.”

Once I realized it, I couldn’t believe how many times a day, I lied to myself in this way! I also had no idea how much I talked to myself in my head…I am quite chatty!

Step 4: Call that lie…a liar!

Even though my mother told me not to talk back…I am learning to TALK BACK to the voices in my head that are keeping me from finishing things and doing my best.

 Example: When the text comes in, and the lie pops up: “Oh, I’ll answer this later”…I stop down and say: “Nope, that’s not true Keri, don’t believe that crazy person in your head…get it done RIGHT NOW.”

 Step 5: Give yourself some grace.

Life is hard. We can only get done in a day what we can get done. And THAT IS OK!

At the end of the day, this IS my best: the good, the bad, the ugly, the finished and the unfinished. It is all a part of me and a part of my journey. Each day I wake up and try my best to be better…and today, and every day, I think that is enough.

LET’S CHAT ABOUT IT:

Are you stopping short of your best? What’s stopping you from living a life in FULL BLOOM? Tell us below.

Trying to be our Best one day at a time, (and sometimes minute by minute)

FHB and especially Me