If you’re like most of us, quite likely sometime this past week or earlier you read what felt like the thousandth, “5 tips to ____ during quarantine” post full of optimism and cheer and something in your mind snapped. All the articles and posts and helpful resources are just becoming noise, in the face of the reality that we can’t do it all.
Of course there have been some incredible family moments while we’ve been quarantined, but for many of us, they have been the exception rather than the norm.
The vast majority of the time has been spent trying to keep a normal pace of life, keep up with workloads that have only increased in an attempt to deliver the same results in a world that is suddenly shut down, homeschooling our kids and somehow managing the emotions and disruption we’re all feeling.
At the end of the day work isn’t done, your kids have watched more TV than you ever thought you’d allow, and you’re more exhausted than you’ve ever been.
There is no magic formula that will allow you to keep going at your pre COVID-19 pace. We can’t give 100% to everything.
But know this, you are not failing. None of us are.
Our team has been reading Brene Brown’s “The Gifts of Imperfection” together during the quarantine, and every chapter has been pure gold. If you haven’t read it, we highly recommend grabbing the e-book at your first chance and digging in. Her words on living a wholehearted life couldn’t be more timely for a world where each of us is suddenly faced with every imperfection.
Success doesn’t equal perfectly executed to do list. It never has. But right now our lives are in enough disarray that this truth can finally click in our minds. It has to.
Success is showing up every day, giving yourself room to breathe, and learn, and grow, and fail. Success is not perfection. And perfection is not success.
It’s hard to pick just one thought to share, but here’s one of our favorites. Hopefully it encourages you to pick up the rest of the book and read for yourself:
“Wholehearted living is about engaging in our lives from a place of worthiness. It means cultivating the courage, compassion, and connection to wake up in the morning and think no matter what gets done and how much is left undone, I am enough. It’s going to bed at night thinking, Yes, I am imperfect and vulnerable and sometimes afraid, but that doesn’t change the truth that I am also brave and worthy of love and belonging.”
We are in this together, and even though your best doesn’t look like it did a month ago, your house is a mess and you’re watching Netflix around the clock just to stay sane, you are enough.
