Mastery, Perfection, Mediocrity...

So I'm almost done the book I talked about in my last post - The Sweet Spot:  How to Find Your Groove at Home and Work.  After I finished the last post, I picked the book up again and another post started brewing in my mind.

Mastery is a journey.  It is filled with both successes and failures.  It is how we handle each failure that will define the journey and whether or not it will even continue.  This makes perfect sense to me.  There are times in my life where I feel that I have handled setbacks like a champ, pushing through and learning and growing in my journey.  In many cases these setbacks were a gift that gave me a focus.  My first year I had two major setbacks.  The second year I was still recovering from the second setback.  I started this year, year three, ready to conquer this journey.  I was healthy and for the first time truly believed that I could actually meet each of my requirements.

Here I sit...  At my computer mid-June and I have to fully admit that in most cases I am horribly behind on my requirements.  What happened?!?

With reflection I believe that there are two factors that largely have played into my current situation.  My mom says I always worked best under pressure.  The need to have a laser focus on something - like when I was fighting my way back from injury helped me push even when it was hard.  This year, I have struggled to maintain that focus without the adversity and have allowed mediocrity to slip in.

The second factor is that once again I need to acknowledge my perfectionist tendencies.  This is not a helpful tendency in any way shape or form.  As I mentioned, I started my year off physically and mentally ready for the challenge.  The perfectionist in me was whoop whooping away ready to conquer the world.  That is until I started to fall behind.  As I fell behind, that perfectionist was working hard to calculate just what was needed to catch up.  Perfection leaves no room for failure.  As that gap grew bigger and bigger, it was harder and harder to motivate that perfectionist to even do anything.  Then enter in some stinkin thinkin...  I was not very kind to myself with my thoughts which was also not very motivating.  Then on top of the rotten self-talk, came the weak excuses.  The cycle went round and round as mediocrity would win one round after another after another.

Now back to the book...  The author has a three step plan for getting back on the right path.  The first step is to feel what you feel.  This is all about mindfulness and acknowledging what is truly going on.  We can't fix what we don't bother to face but we need to do it in a non-judgemental way.  I have really struggled with the non-judgemental part personally.  The second step ties into that by untangling your thoughts.  In this step she talked a lot about replacing negative self-talk with self-compassion.  This is definitely not to be confused with making excuses but accepting "to err is human" and allowing ourselves the space and ability to move to step three.  Step three is to take responsibility and course-correct.

I still have a lot to work through in this process - most of which will likely happen in my personal journal.  You're welcome!  I will spare you all the messiness of my thought life.  I did want to share this much for a couple of reasons.  The first one is completely selfish.  I know me and I know that I am likely going to need this reminder again and again so I am recording it here for myself.  The other reason is that I know there are others of you out there who are struggling.  I want to encourage all of us to take a deep breathe, accept where we are honestly at and then truly start moving forward.  I may not meet my goals this year, but I can focus on getting a little closer each day.