doing the hard things

If you notice something you’re bad at, don’t avoid it.

If you have a weakness, don’t just steer around it and overcompensate in other ways.

If your left arm was broken, you wouldn’t just ignore it and use your right for everything so you wouldn’t have to deal with the pain and inconvenience of helping your left one get better.

I saw a CrossFitter post advice on Facebook this week, saying “don’t skip the workouts you hate.”

I’m trying to apply this to myself and the areas in my life that need a lot of practice and strengthening. I’ve noticed I deal with a lot of self-doubt, and my greatest fear is that people will see me as incompetent, so I’m practicing making my own decisions, trusting my intuition, moving forward in the best way I know how at any given time (without following the urge to poll a million people first, for their opinions and advice), and remembering there’s nothing for me to measure up to. There are no levels of others’ approval or determination of competency I’m bound to. I’m reminding myself I care more about learning, growth, and the wholehearted, fantastic experience of my life than I care about “success” or typical cultural metrics and fitting in. It’s okay to look silly, it’s okay to fail, it’s okay to not know things, it’s okay to follow your very own chaotic, unknown path, charting as you go. I’m reminding myself this is the one amazing story I get to write and live — my life — and it’s all a giant adventure and experiment. Trying to remember to have fun and just try stuff.

I’ve been reaching out to a lot of people. I’ve been setting myself up for opportunities I want to try. I’m practicing accepting rejection with resilience. (JUST KEEP GOING.) I’m looking around and listening and taking in whatever I can, trying to learn whatever I can. I’m paying attention to what I want (ME, not someone else or not what I think I should want) and what I can do to make it happen. I’m teamworking and sharing with my husband and getting a lot of useful love and help back.

I’m bad at plenty of things. But I can get better at them.

Keep practicing. ❤