Has this ever happened to you?
Has this ever happened to you? You set a goal of losing weight. You commit to the goal and focus on the steps you need to take. You meticulously plan for what you’re going to eat and how you’re going to exercise. You try your very best to follow the plan perfectly. But then something happens. You either make a mistake or you don’t get the results you wanted at the time you wanted them, and then you beat yourself up. You soon find yourself back where you started, or maybe worse, because now you feel defeated and maybe you even put on more weight. While this plan may sound good in essence, we all know that nothing ever works perfectly. This attempt at perfection puts us in a state of so much stress, and we’ve learned what stress can do to our bodies. Even worse, once we’re beating ourselves up for making a mistake, it often leads us down a negative cycle of self-sabotage. You might be familiar with this cycle. It often looks like this: “I made one mistake in my eating / exercise plan, so now I’m going to completely quit. I don’t have enough willpower to do this.” This all or nothing attitude is not the best way to create change! Want to know what’s more helpful than trying to be perfect? You guessed it, loving yourself. Loving yourself helps you when you make mistakes! Since we know that perfection is not an option, we need to plan for imperfection. If you put the critical voice aside and allow a loving voice to take the lead, you can accept yourself and your mistakes. You can forgive the misstep and simply keep going. One mantra I repeat to myself when I catch myself wanting to do things perfectly is this: Progress not perfection. Remembering that my goal is progress allows me to be gentle with myself. While you may think that planning for imperfection will hold you back from reaching your goals, I find the opposite to be true. I’ve accomplished much more by embracing imperfection than I ever would have if I were still trying to do things perfectly. Ready to give it a try? Start by shifting your mindset! Allow for mistakes. Embrace imperfection. Speak to yourself with compassion. Love yourself through every mistake you make. Let me know how this affects you. Love and light,
Mendy
