Hope for the Hopeless

According to my therapist (and my husband before her), I tend to be really hard on myself. Other people I can forgive, live and let live, encourage...Me, I must be perfect or nothing at all. I'm not entirely sure where that came from, but I know it can be overcome. So many things in my life have been abandoned or never started because I knew I didn't have the skill or the time to "do it right (i.e.perfectly)." And as we all know, if it's worth doing, it's worth doing RIGHT!! Well, not necessarily. Many things just need to be DONE and it doesn't really matter if it's done perfectly. For your own sanity, if you struggle with this, I beg you...take the advice of the NIKE shoe company and just do it. If it turns out badly, at least it got done. At least it isn't still sitting in your inbox making you feel guilty with its incompleteness. You folks know who you are and you know the kinds of things I'm talking about. "I can't clean out the utility room because I don't have the right kind of trash bag. I can't start writing that book, because I have to regrout my tile; but I can't do that till I get to the store for more grout; but I can't go to the store because I haven't showered today..." YOU know.

Okay, so what's the one thing that's putting the biggest guilt trip on you? Get up right now and TAKE ONE SMALL STEP toward getting it done. Yep. You don't have to get it all done right now, just do something so you know that you WILL get it done. You will feel so much better. I promise.