Inspiring Through Imperfection

This quote came across my Instagram stories last week, “You don’t inspire others by being perfect. You inspire them by how you deal with your imperfections.” 

Immediately, I resonated with it at a very deep level. I had never been able to put language to what I was trying to create with this blog and in my coaching business, but this line said it all. If you have followed my content for any length of time, then you know I regularly interweave my mistakes with the lessons that accompanied them. My desire is to teach by walking alongside you, not by standing behind a podium on a platform pretending to have it all figured out. 

So with that said, it’s time to circle back to a post from December, where we discussed the three recommendations to effective goal setting. As a recap, the three principles were: 

• Don’t set goals, solve problems
• Focus on the habits
• Have an abundance of love and grace 

We are now six weeks into the new year, and chances are your goal chart is not trending perfectly up and to the right. Most of you have probably hit some bumps in the road. Let’s talk about those. Since I know most people learn best through stories, we will discuss the bumps through my own personal experiences in the first six weeks of 2021. 

At the beginning of the year I set 9 goals for 2021, but knew I could not tackle them all at once. They needed to be handled a few at a time.

For this year, the spokes that needed to most attention were: 

• Financial
  • Upgrading from a sedan to a minivan (Also a family spoke goal)
  • Finishing our 6 month emergency fund (we began the year with 2 months)
  • Saving money toward a home upgrade (having 1 bathroom for a family of 4 has its moments 😉 
• Family 
  • Finishing our home renovations so we can list our house 
  • Capturing more photos and videos of my children (At 2 and 7 their childhood is in its prime and I want to treasure these days) 
• Health
  • Lose 20 pounds by prioritizing daily exercise and cleaner eating (long list of the reasons why I want to do this. They are all health benefits and quality of life connected. I love my body as she is, and want to take better care of her)
• Self-Care
  • Prioritize stress management outlets
• Career
  • Transition to full time coaching 
• Mental & Spiritual 
  • Prioritize my meditation practice daily

It’s important for me to share my list of goals with you so that the rest of the content makes more sense. 

It’s not wise to tackle all the goals at once. I knew I needed to pick three to focus specifically on for quarter 1 so the rest could fall into place over the course of the year. 

For January, I decided to tackle my morning routine because it’s a foundational habit. It would help the mental, spiritual and physical goals that I set, which I believed would set me up for success everywhere else. 

However, I hit some major roadblocks. Oftentimes, when trying to create new habits, we discover other habits that must first be addressed in order to create the space for the new habit to develop. 

In my attempt to wake up earlier, I needed to go to bed earlier. In my attempt to go to bed earlier, I discovered just how much I had gotten accustomed to doing after the children went to bed. My 2020 routine had been to have the children in bed by 8pm and then I would sleep 11pm-7am. Trying to shift to a 5am wake up call meant a 9pm bedtime. 

I truly thought I could do it on January 1st. However, as the month progressed, I realized that so many other spokes were getting completely neglected. I had created space in that time for my writing, cleaning my house, quality time with my husband and stress decompression. Going to bed earlier, so I could put new things into my morning routine that weren’t already in my life, proved to not be sustainable for me. 

Something had to give, somewhere. 

I already knew my plate was full and at maximum capacity. I told that to people regularly. However, I had convinced myself I could squeeze in some new habits. The truth was, I definitely could not. So what was going to go? Something could no longer fit. 

The middle to end of January looked messy as I powered through deadlines and projects and intentionally let things fall through the cracks while my husband and I discussed a sustainable solution. 

I had to shift the order I planned to accomplish my goals. 

On January 1, the map I made for my year slated my career changes for Q3. I believed I could keep growing this business on the side of a career and make the leap later. Two weeks into the new year I proved I was wrong. 

We re-evaluated the goals and realized that one goal on the list of 9 could be THE catalyst of change in every other area. The career spoke. 

In 2020, my schedule looked like working a full time job for 40-50 hours a week, and then running this blog and coaching business for an average of 10 hours per week. If you go back and reread that list of 9 goals, imagine how much easier they would all be to accomplish if I transitioned into a career that allowed me to add back in 10-20 hours a week to my other spokes AND increased my income significantly. 

I had to pivot. 

I paused my January intentions of mastering my morning routine and set to figure out how to make the transition. And today, as I write this blog, I’m in that messy middle. I am working with the leadership at my dayjob to find a replacement and train her/him while I tie up any loose ends. Simultaneously, I am building a strong foundation for what is to come in the near future. 

As I sit here in mid-February with none of my habits completely successful, I have the power to choose the story I tell myself. I know that I cannot yet check any boxes and declare one accomplished, but I can see that the stage is being set and preparations are underway. 

Have you hit any roadblocks on your journey to accomplish your goals? What solutions are working for you? How are you overcoming the obstacles? 

Do you realize you still have the power to accomplish everything you intended? What can you learn from what DIDN’T work last month? How can you be empowered by that experience instead of discouraged?