It’s mid-April. Over a quarter of the year in. What goals did you have? Anywhere close? So much time has passed and you haven’t done nearly enough towards them, have you?
Did you even get around to making any goals?
I didn’t. I printed out my YearCompass, over several days in January and Feb I got about half of it done and have been meaning to get back to the rest ever since. When people talk about their goals of 2018, I feel two things:
A small jump of hope in my chest, like, I will make and write mine, at some point
and
A small sinking just below it. How can I expect to get anywhere if I didn’t even make any goals?
If this is you, too. If you feel shame about what you haven’t yet got done:
Let it go.
What’s next?
Your relationship. Or lack of.
Maybe you’re single and, even if you’re ok with it, it’s hard not to feel like you’re failing at life, because everything in our world is primed towards explaining that being coupled up for life is Normal and not being coupled up for life makes you a f-cking loser. You try and remind yourself, ‘But I like my freedom‘, but the feeling that people who get to say, “my husband” or “my wife” are succeeding at life still seeps through. Even if you don’t believe it on an intellectual level. Even when you know it’s not true.
The only time my (extremely kind, totally compassionate) therapist ever openly laughed at me was when I once, a few years ago (during the period when he was in the news a lot), through tears, I said to her, “Rob Ford found someone who wanted to marry him and yet I can’t!”
If you’ve ever felt less than because of what you are or aren’t doing romantically:
Let it go.
Maybe you’re not single, but you’re starting to feel pretty sure your relationship is not as good as your friends’, or sometimes you fight and it destroys you a little because you’re horrible at dealing with conflict. Or there are things that are totally fine about your partner but that you never, in a hundred thousand years, would have actively chosen in a sweetheart, or maybe it’s just not exciting in the way you think it should be exciting. And then you get on Facebook and someone’s posting couple selfies and you think, How is it you have a Hollywood Romance where you just adore everything about each other and meanwhile we’re fighting over those little plastic bread ties?
I have this group of friends in Toronto, four of them, for a long time all married or as good as. One, when she met her partner, I was so thrilled for her. I had started picking out wedding gifts in my head before their second date. She’d had some ups and downs in romance, but here was someone who was kind and stable and right and they were just great together.
They’d post a lot of pictures on Instagram. Honestly, there were times when I’d look at them and, while holding in my heart TRUE happiness for her, would also sometimes would feel a sting of inadequacy as I thought, Wow. You’ve NAILED it. You guys are just happy all the time (It doesn’t hurt that they’re both eye-bleedingly good-looking).
Of all the couples in my groups of friends, they were clearly the most solid.
Then she messaged. They were going to split up. They couldn’t get over their differences. All the differences that don’t go on Instagram.
If you’ve ever felt inadequate looking at people’s relationships through the filter of what they post online or look like in public:
Let it go.
If you haven’t meditated for months, or maybe you have but you haven’t exercised for weeks, or maybe you have but your intentions to green juice every day lasted exactly you buying one $12 Kale Cleanser and then making none, or you think that not doing the amount of self-care you intend to do makes you a failure, listen to this:
For years, I felt guilty about not having the morning routine I longed for, I knew I should be doing Morning Pages, meditation, a workout, a good breakfast, some writing, and read a few pages of a business or self-development book.
Every morning, I berated myself for not managing all of those things. Until one day, I did a course about morning routines with Susan Piver, where she told us to time out our ideal morning routines. Mine:
Morning Pages – 30 mins
Meditation – 10 mins
A workout – 30 mins
Shower – 30 mins
Good breakfast – 30 mins
Some writing – 30 mins
Read a few pages of a business or self-development book – 15 mins
For the first time, I added it all up, plus 5 mins transition time between each.
Three hours and 25 minutes.
If I start work at 9am, that would mean getting up every morning at 5:55am
I’m not built for that.
I stopped feeling guity and you should too.
Let it go.
I teach this stuff and I still struggle not to assume everyone else is nailing it in all areas, and I’m the failure.
I promise you, and I promise me: this is not true.
Let it go.
You’re doing just fine.
So go on, then: when was the last time you compared, in a way that, now you think about it, might not have been realistic? I’d love to know in the comments below.
Thank you for reading. If you know someone who really needs this today, you can share it using one of the round buttons below, or by clicking HERE to share on Facebook.
You rule,
xx (Yes Yes) Marsha
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8 Comments
Heather Lynds
April 18, 2018Thank you so much for this wonderful post, and for the immediate relief I felt reading it.
Marsha (Yes Yes Marsha)
April 18, 2018I’m so glad it helped you! Thank you for letting me know, it means a lot :)
xxyyM
Briane Nasimok
April 18, 2018I did a story last Friday which centered around e.e.cummings poetry and I think a few of his writings could relate to your posting. In his poem, If everything happens that can’t be done – he describes love with a partner as a beautiful one times one… the mathematician in me wants to put brackets around each “one” . Can we ever find the true “one” that we can bond with to find that union?
The other poem is “seeker of truth” and for me it focuses on many things – one of them being the regrets we might have for paths not taken or relations not sought or worked on…. and the lack of ability to “let it go”.
There are times when I reflectand think … if I had done this, or made that choice… so
seeker of truth
follow no path
all paths lead where
truth is here
Marsha (Yes Yes Marsha)
April 18, 2018I love this, and i LOVE e.e.cummings!
Though I am with another hero of mine, Dan Savage, around the falacy of The One. because, if you’re ‘one’ dies in a car crash, what, you’re not allowed another? Like Dan, I think it’s more about finding a 7/10 and rounding them up :)
Thanks for the eec quote at the end. Beautiful. He makes me feel peaceful.
jooliargh
April 18, 2018Morning routines are my FAVOURITE lifehack articles. I love to read them and think about the extra hour I have snoozing under my duvet while all these dutiful people are doing downward facing dog and preparing their kale smoothies. I mean, good luck to them, I genuinely hope it brings them joy. But nope, I am never going to be one of them.
Marsha (Yes Yes Marsha)
April 18, 2018omg this made me laugh so much.
When the lottery started in the UK, my mum’s friend would pick six numbers every week but not buy a ticket. Then she’d diligently watch them being drawn, before congratulating herself on one pound well saved.
Brooke
April 18, 2018Hi Marsha! LOVE this! Thank you for being you and putting this out there in the world –
Marsha (Yes Yes Marsha)
April 18, 2018So glad you do! Thanks for letting me know :) :)
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