If you feel like everyone else is doing their lives just a little bit better than you are, you may need this

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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