The Freedom to Fail
“What is your number one goal for third grade?”
I watched her closely as she stared intently at the ceiling. It was the night before school started, and she is the one who needs a little probing if we’re to have any clue what’s happening inside that little brain of hers.
“Make friends?” she said, and she shrugged her shoulders. I knew she had a different answer to my question that she was afraid to share, so I pushed a little harder.
“You have friends already, and you’re so friendly that I know you’ll make new friends. What else are you hoping for this year?”
She sighed and shifted her focus to my face. “I want to make straight A’s.”
This sweet child of mine has a feisty nature that constantly pushes for perfection. It’s not something that her father or I push on her, but it is innate to her character. She does not like to make mistakes, and she struggles with anything less than perfection. This is a blessing, but also a concern.
The problem with perfectionism is we’re bound to fail. While I have a child on the other end of the spectrum who is perfectly content with average and generally not concerned with excelling (a trait that presents challenges of its own), this one takes perceived failure to heart, then she buries it there where it festers and grows until she slowly begins to shut down.
Nobody ever said parenting was easy, right?
I understand her, though, because I have a bit of perfectionism in me. By nature, I do not like to be wrong, to fail, or to make mistakes. I get very frustrated with myself when these things happen. Sometimes I don’t even realize that I’m fighting this feeling until I explode, a tidal wave of frustration spilling out in one ugly outburst.
In high school, I believe a counselor labeled this as obsessive-compulsive. Like my daughter, I have the tendency to perceive failure as simply not being good enough, and if I don’t feel like I can be good enough, then why keep trying? Why not focus my efforts on areas where perfection is attainable?
I know this child because she is very much like me.
There’s a balance to life. We learn this as we grow older, but I want to give her the tools she needs now to cope with failure. I want her to know she has the freedom to make mistakes, to stumble, to not be perfect. I do not expect perfection from any of my children.
I’m learning to not expect it from myself.
We talked a little bit about working hard in school, about doing her best and not worrying about the end result. “It’s okay if you don’t get straight A’s,” I told her gently. “I just want you to try hard.”
I could see her brow furrow, because I know what she’s thinking. If I try my best, I should be able to do this perfectly.
Ah, if only it were that easy.
I’ve been working feverishly on my e-book, preparing to launch it next week. As I did the necessary background work to release it, I found two typos in the manuscript. This is, obviously, not the end of the world. The woman designing the book for me has graciously helped me correct these typos so that I can publish a book that is as near perfect as it can possibly be.
But it hasn’t stopped me from berating myself a bit. I’m a writer and editor – how did I miss these things?!
I missed them because I’m human and I’m flawed, and I cannot always be perfect. But I can learn from my mistakes. I can be more careful in how I go about things. I can try harder to get it right.
And I can give myself the freedom to fail, to pick myself up and dust myself off, and to keep moving forward.
How will I teach my daughter that failure is not only necessary, but sometimes even vital to getting better?
I’ll show her. I have ample opportunity every day to model grace to her, both in how I respond to myself when I make mistakes, and how I respond to her.
This is my gift to all perfectionists who are loathe to make a mistake – There is freedom in failure. Embrace it, then pass it on to those around you.
For When You Don’t Feel Like You’re Enough
There’s this weird, twilight experience that happens to women when they become mothers. Suddenly a distinct line is drawn between who we were, and who we are now. We feel simultaneously lost, and in the same breath found as we embrace this thing called motherhood.
Photo by Lulu Photography
It can cause a bit of vertigo if we’re not careful.
It seems that this feeling of embracing motherhood, dying to self, rediscovering passions, balancing life, and finding ourselves again ebbs and flows throughout the years in an endless cycle. Sometimes I feel like I’m coursing with purpose in my every day. I feel fulfilled in my role as mother. I feel energized in my work. I feel like…well, I feel like I’m enough.
But there are other seasons – the dryer times when I am utterly spent, weighted down with the responsibility that each day throws my way. I feel incapable of loving my children well, overrun by laundry that never ends, frayed by the bickering and arguing, and completely dry in my work.
In those times I feel like nothing I do is enough.
If I’m being honest, I will tell you that I’m fighting my way out of a very long dry spell right now.
I’m discouraged in my work, feeling like I’m spinning my wheels and getting nowhere fast. I am constantly overwhelmed by laundry, by bathrooms that just. won’t. stay. clean. I can’t seem to pull dinner together before 5:30 every night, I dread the grocery store, and some days I just sort of wander through the house like a vagabond.
I’m even feeling inadequate as I type this blog post, positive that these words have been written before by someone who probably articulated the message much more eloquently.
It’s in these times that I constantly remind myself that motherhood is a journey. I haven’t arrived, and not every day is going to be the best day of my life. Last week, as my six year old showered, he lamented the low water pressure and cooler water. Everyone was showering at the same time, and the washing machine was running.
“Why is the water so soft?” he wailed. When I explained, he hung his head in utter disgust.
“This is da worst day of my whole life,” he mumbled.
I had to laugh, because what I wouldn’t give to have the problems of a six year old. It was a reminder to me, though, that bad days come no matter our age. Sometimes the days feel like they’re trickling out, weak and tepid. I stomp my foot and wonder why on EARTH my circumstances aren’t more comfortable.
Such is the journey of life. It moves in patches of comfort and frustration. Productivity and fatigue. Obedient children and defiant children. Some days are so good. Other days are really bad. Most days are a combination of both.
And thank goodness for the ebb and flow, because can you imagine how boring life would be if everything were sunny and easy? Without the rain, there is no color in this world, but thankfully, motherhood is full of color.
Sometimes I just have to look a little harder to find it.
Blessings to all you Mama’s out there who are working your way through the trenches of motherhood. Hold your head high and watch for rainbows, my friends! They always come after the rain.
Preparing to Launch
We are in massive preparation mode around here, and I am on a mission of epic proportions to get my house under control. It is a bit of an exercise in futility given that school has been out, and I’ve had roughly 8 children on average inside my home all summer long, but it makes me feel like I’m moving forward.
The kids head back to school tomorrow. Big launch!
The baby is coming in one month. Huge launch!
My e-book releases next Monday. Big, huge, massive launch!
That’s right – my first e-book, 30 Days to Becoming a Writer, releases on Amazon next Monday and I am so excited to share this with everyone. I’m really proud of the way this book has come together, and I’ve worked hard at making it the best I could possibly offer to the world.
If you’re interested in being a part of my launch team, please leave me a comment with your email address, and I’ll send you more information. In the meantime, I will continue all the preparations for launch.
Look for more information in the coming days, and for me to return to blogging with more fervor now that I have a little time to stretch together a few thoughts.
Did I mention that kids start school tomorrow?
Join me in the happy dance, won’t you?!
Links to inspire
Once upon a time, I made sure to blog every day. Even through the summer, I somehow managed to blog a minimum of 4 days/week.
I don’t know how I did this!
Maybe it’s because my kids were younger, and I could tie them up in their rooms for hours at a time without fear of them ratting me out.
I’m kidding!
They did take naps, though. Is that when I wrote? Or perhaps it’s because they were younger, so a strict bedtime was important, which gave me more evening hours, and made getting up early easier.
Or maybe I just neglected them altogether?
Whatever the case may be, for some reason this summer it has been nearly impossible for me to find time to write. I tried waking up early so I could savor the quiet hours of darkness, but I have a child who also likes the quiet hours of darkness. The only way to beat him up would be to get up in the middle of the night.
I like blogging, but I like sleeping more.
We’ve had late nights and busy days, and blogging has been firmly placed on the back burner until next week when school starts.
SCHOOL STARTS NEXT WEEK! You can’t see it, but I just started dancing – a comical sight when one is 15 months pregnant.
Anyway…
Since I haven’t had time to come up with decent bloggy words, I’m going to leave you with a few links of posts that have impacted me this week. These were all probably written by people who still lock their kids in their bedrooms all day long.
I’m kidding! Actually, one of these links was written by me, so…
Goodness. End of summer makes me punchy.
Links to Inspire
“Phenomenal Cosmic Powers
Itty Bitty Living Space”
My friend Wendy wrote a beautiful tribute to Robin Williams and to creatives everywhere.
Looking for adorable lunch boxes to send to school with your children this year? I would suggest these gems from Rockey Paper & Design. Not only are they fun to look at on this outside, but inside is equipped with a small chalkboard on which you can write notes to your cherubs each morning.
In short, these lunch boxes will set you well on the path to that Mother of the Year nomination you’ve been working toward.
Photo Credit: www.shaungroves.com
Shaun Groves offers some great tips to help curb choice paralysis at conferences. This post offers potential solutions that lead to a win-win-win for both conference attendees and sponsors.
I’m over at Extraordinary Mommy today offering some Florida travel tips, none of which involve the giant mouse. Bonus tip: If you come visit Florida, you can spend a few days with us.
DEAL JUST GOT SWEETER, EH?
Photo Credit www.preemptivelove.org
If you, like me, have wondered why more Muslim leaders aren’t standing up against the atrocities happening in Iraq, then this is the post for you. I was relieved to see that Muslim leaders from around the world had taken a stand against the actions of ISIS, condemning it for the wickedness that it is.
I would also urge you to spend a little time on the Preemptive Love website to learn about the amazing work this organization is doing in Iraq. There is an opportunity to do more than watch in horror by giving to this organization as they work to aid the persecuted people of Iraq.
It’s been a hard week, hasn’t it? Worldwide news of destruction, the death of beloved celebrities, and the heaviness of this world were enough to darken the walls of our hearts. But take joy, my friends. There is still beauty in this world, and there’s hope for tomorrow.
I pray this weekend is restful, peaceful, and filled with enough laughter to chase away the pain.
The Season of Right Now
In roughly seven weeks, our life is going to change drastically. I think I’m ready for it, but I don’t know.
Are you ever really ready to have a baby?
This is the fourth time I’ve done this, so I feel like I’m a little more prepared for the process of transition. I’m ready to not be pregnant. I’m ready to meet her. I’m ready to see my big kids become big siblings, some of them for the second or third time, one of them for the first time.
I’m ready to to move forward, but I’m also not.
I’m not ready for middle of the night feedings. I’m not ready for the sleep deprivation. I’m not ready to try and get three kids up and out the door in the mornings with an infant in my arms, and then get those same three kids to bed at night with an infant in my arms.
I’m not ready to figure out how to fit eating and nap schedules into sports schedules.
I won’t really be ready for any of that, which is why I’m priming myself daily to just let it all go. Go with the flow. Ride the wave of crazy until it crests a little bit.
“You’re not going to die from disorganization,” I tell myself daily. Although with the nesting settling in full force, I am finding myself a bit twitchy at all the things that need to be done around here. The clutter – AH! The clutter. I want to get rid of all of it. I want to stop spending money (last bit of summer fun combined with school time preparations is making me feel like I’m just tossing stacks of bills into the wind…)
I want to hole up in a neat, quiet, organized house and wait for her to come.
But I can’t.
There are activities in which to participate, preparations to be made, messes to be tolerated, and bills to pay. Insurance confusion won’t sort itself out, and kids want to swim three times a day while they still can.
(I just wish they would quit swimming in their clothes because the laundry is killing me softly.)
As I work on my new book on motherhood and creativity, I’m challenged to apply the lessons that Wendy and I are so passionate about teaching to my own life. One of those lessons?
There are seasons for everything in life.
There’s a season in which creating, working on my craft, takes a much more prominent role. And there are seasons when mothering my brood has to be given greater precedence.
There’s a season for a neat house and fresh, homemade meals, and there’s a season for dirty floors, dirty laundry, and take out and left overs.
There’s a season to keep up, and a season to fall behind.
I’m not sure if there’s ever a season for sleeping when you’re a parent, but I hold out hope as it’s the only thing that gets me through the days.
Right now, as we finish out our final two weeks of summer before school starts, I find myself in a season of activity. That’s okay. I’m going to be okay with that. This is a season with friends over, lots of noise, messy floors, and memory building. It’s not a season for extended hours of writing.
In two weeks the season will change.
And after that? An entirely new season will begin.
Embracing the crazy is my only option…because drinking’s off the table.
I’m kidding!
Sort of…
What season are you in right now? Are you enjoying the season, or are you, like me, talking yourself through it, clutching onto the joyful moments like a life vest?
The amazing photos are courtesy of Lulu Photography.
