Progress

It’s the time of year where we are making resolutions and maybe even sticking to them. Something about that ball dropping and the calendar resetting can give new found energy and determination to make goals and stop making excuses. Today I realized that there are some things going pretty well for this new year: I am on day 4 of a whole30 (wait...it’s seriously only been 4 days?!) and I am feeling really pretty good (last time I was angry and frustrated the whole dang time); I made a concise budget last night for the month of January (after panicking over our bank account) with it’s own little cute binder and everything; I have cleaned out a cabinet and put in my new dishes that are so much more space efficient (which is good since all this whole30 cooking makes a ton of dishes and the sink is still piled high right now); I made myself an office which is just a life-changing, life-giving thing. What made me realize that some things are going really well, though, was a frustration and almost panic about all the other things that I haven’t gotten around to yet. I’m not going to list those things because that seems antithetical to the point I’m making. I was brought back to the reality that I am not perfect but I am making progress. That panic of “But I didn’t start doing THIS (whatever “this” is in the moment) on Jan 1, and multiple days have passed, so it’s just not going to happen this year, is it?!” is p-e-r-f-e-c-t-i-o-n-i-s-m. (PS Maybe you don’t panic the way I do, but nonchalantly just not committing to anything can also be perfectionism.) The point: There was a huge thing that I committed to (whole30, if you haven’t been paying attention) and I have not wavered on it for 4 whole days. Four days felt super insignificant until I looked at my daily journal and saw there a visual indication of progress. In the words of Daniel Tiger, who we have been watching a LOT of this week while Nate is weathering a cold, “If something seems hard to do, try it a little bit at a time.”

P.S. For those of you who struggle with anxiety: Tonight I had a panic over something small, but I pushed through and did what I needed to do anyways. My inner dialogue afterwards was, “Well, I’m just stupid and worry about dumb things...” and then I stopped, took a breath, and spoke back to myself, “You’re not stupid. You have an anxiety disorder, and your brain is constantly looking for anything to latch onto and worry about. It is just the way your brain works. You could be a genius and understand how every little mechanism on earth works, and you would still find something to be nervous about. You are not stupid.” This, too, is progress.