"Compare where you are to where you want to be and you’ll get nowhere" ~ Sara Bareilles
I began my journey to overcome my perfectionism over a year ago, and have made amazing progress. However, there is still much work to do.
I’ve begun setting more realistic standards for myself, and for others, to alleviate unnecessary stress.
Am I working hard enough? Why aren’t I getting the results I hope for? Should I just give up? These questions can be crippling. I end up putting my original goals aside to do something less stressful.
In the end, the relief is only temporary. If I keep delaying the inevitable, it will only become harder to overcome my perceived obstacles.
Procrastination and perfectionism go hand in hand after all.
My favorite song by Sara Bareilles is Uncharted from her album Kaleidoscope Heart. It’s all about trying to overcome your own limits but being unable to overcome your imposter-syndrome.
There’s no set path for you to follow, you have to figure it out for yourself. The lyrics remind of the videos I watched on how to teach myself vibrato on the violin.
I see these amazing violinists all over social media, and they can all use vibrato. It’s a skill that takes time to learn, which requires patience.
Patience is my top New Year’s resolution, and many of the tasks I’ve begun require it. Every day, I learn something new about running a blog, and add it to my never-ending list of blog-related tasks to accomplish.
I had a five-year plan that I still feel uncertain about, because my life’s changed drastically since the spring.
Most things are not set in stone. It only feels this way because we care too much about others’ expectations.
What others want from us, may not be realistic. We have our own limits and our own boundaries (my other New Year’s resolution).
Hearing Sara Bareilles explain how it’s tough and can be frustrating to not know all the answers or not be naturally good at something, improves my confidence a bit. After all, no one is good at everything.
Even the people who learned the vibrato technique in only a few months have things they cannot do so easily.
It’s important to realize that it does us no good to compare ourselves to our ideal. We should focus on getting there, at our pace.
We will fail. No one wins at everything, in fact, the people who succeed have also failed the most. What does it mean to win anyway? What does it mean to be successful? If we measure our own worth by rules others set, we’ll never be satisfied.
I’m doing a great job. I’m running my own website and managing my social media accounts to the best of my ability. Sure, I may not be getting all the results I hoped for, but that’s okay.
I have dreams and goals in both the short-term and long-term, and as long as I accomplish them I’ll be fine. What the heck?
Even if I don’t reach all of my goals, it’s okay. I am having a lot of fun this summer, and I need to appreciate that.
Having you ever felt frustrated that you missed a deadline or aren’t getting the results you want? Let me know down below!
Make sure to check out my previous post on this month’s 30-Day Writing Challenge!
