suck hard

My writing yesterday, after listening to that Oonagh/Kusudi podcast, has opened the floodgates…

I am all shades of exploration, expansion, explosion today…

I am brimming with ideas, and opportunities and lessons are flying at me.

I’m writing.  And blogging.  Seeing the gifts and the lessons of everything I’m growing through, everything that’s challenging me, all the stuff I’ve been getting stuck in and weighed down by.

Perspective.  Hopefully a little wisdom is being forged.  It’s hard work.  It’s so cool and wicked rewarding whenever you get to start seeing little glimpses of the worthwhile results.

So I’m writing.  And it feels like I can’t write fast enough.  I have two nearly-finished drafts in progress on my blog page right now, and then I had to come over here and open this page to keep going.

EMBRACE THE SUCK.

On the idea of embracing the suck…

I just wrote this into one of my blog drafts:

Being unwilling to experiment, to try things, to fail faster, to fail forward, to “suck hard?”  (A phrase my husband taught me — suck hard, suck often, suck a lot… be bad at stuff and keep going.  Keep learning.  You never get better if you aren’t willing to suck first.  The people who become the best?  They embrace the suck and don’t let it stop them.)

And I realized…

I need to embrace the suck of my own young-adult becoming and evolution.  Of my job searching.  Of not having any answers.  Of feeling scared and like a mess and like I don’t know where I’m going.  Of not knowing what I want to do with my life or myself, not having a clear and organized plan – for next week, for the year, for five years down the road, or ten…

So what??!?!?!!

Re-read what I wrote up there. The motto “suck hard” from my husband.

The people who get really good.

The ones who make their biggest impact.

The ones who really LIVE and embrace their authentic truths and biggest dreams and greatest growth and contribution.

THEY ARE WILLING TO SUCK HARD AND FAIL FORWARD.  THEY ARE WILLING TO BE NEW AT SOMETHING AND KEEP DOING IT UNTIL THEY CAN ACHIEVE COMPETENCY AND EVEN MASTERY.

What if this applies to all of life?

I am new at this.

I’m a newbie.

I’m young.

I haven’t been doing this for very long. (You’ve NEVER been doing “this” – your life, the experimentation, the LIVING and engaging – for long enough to decide it’s a wash and time to throw in the towel.  You’re never too old.  Life is so short, we’re all new at this.  Keep going.)

Of course I don’t know!  Of course I’m sucking in some ways!  Can I let that be okay?  Can I let it move me forward?  Fail forward?  Suck harder?  Keep going?  Can I accept the mess and the gift that comes with it?  Can I accept myself and my life, exactly as I am, exactly where I am now, knowing nothing is wrong with me, and it’s going just as it should?  Can I let the experimenting and total unknowns be welcomed and be guides and be loved?

I’m a baby!  I am turning 24 on Monday.  Wow!  So beautiful.  So exciting.

I just kind of started turning this into an epiphany of: if I can apply “failure as a gift” and “suck hard” to the actual act of LIVING MY LIFE – not just to a hobby or skill or one specific new thing I want to learn, but to eeeeeeverything my life, choices, thoughts, feelings, and actions consist of, all my multiplicity – then I think maybe I can really get somewhere.

If I can be willing to be a beginner and just keep being a beginner – day one forever and ever – and let myself use this as a pushing off point for evolution and growth, knowing it’s all impossible without the bumps and tumbles, then I can keep going.  Really and truly.

Then I can get deeper.

Everything gets better.

I have so much potential opened up to me.

I can know I’m only at the beginning of the road.

Suck hard with your life.  Embrace this.  Do your very best.  Move forward with humility and kindness and bold creativity and gratitude.  Know you are not going to get it right all the time.  You just can’t.  You haven’t learned that yet.

Stop beating yourself up for what you don’t know or what you think you SHOULD know or what’s hard for you where you’re still at.

Do not let that get in your way for one second longer.  Just let it drop, immediately.  It doesn’t serve you, honey.

You can’t know what you don’t know.  But you can take the failures that happen and the discomfort along the way as the wise teachers they are, here to offer you the opportunity to fail forward.  To keep growing.

You can embrace sucking in your life and “being bad” at life. (Really, you’re probably so much better than you think anyway!  We are all in the same boat. ❤  And there’s so much you already know.  Trust that Knowing.) Embracing this frees you up to just keep LIVING.

And to get better and better and better at what really matters to you.

You cannot learn if you are not willing to suck.

Get on out there.  Suck hard.  Live big.  Have fun.

Lots of love.

P.S. I’m the luckiest to have Jake. 😉 Really. How much longer would it take me to make so many of the discoveries and leaps forward in my life without him?! All my love, forever, Jake. 💋