Giving yourself grace is giving yourself the permission to forgive your mistakes, lapses in judgment, and hurtful behavior, because no one is perfect. That’s right, read that again.
Giving ourselves grace can help us make small, sustainable changes that help support our long term goals, mental health, and well-being. It is basically a critical component to getting unstuck and making progress towards happiness.
It’s so easy to come down on ourselves whenever we make mistakes, which is simply a part of being human right? And is a wonderful thing to learn. That we are not great at everything, that we are less-than-perfect in certain areas of our lives, and that at the end of the day, that is ok!
But that is not the end of it, there is more to it than just recognizing we are not perfect and that we will make mistakes no matter how much effort we put into things.
Let’s pause for a minute and do a quick check on where you are today with your self-care relationship here. How you react when you do make those mistakes is what matters the most, much more so than accepting we are not perfect in advance.
Ask yourself the following questions every now and again to check where you are emotionally with yourself:
Do you get frustrated when you make a mistake and things don’t go as planned?
Do you hold yourself accountable to a higher standard you hold other people?
Can you let go of some of that responsibility before you mess up?
Do you prioritize your wellbeing over other things, or even other people?
How often do you celebrate the small wins? Are you your biggest cheerleader? And if not, why not?
I have found myself being too hard on myself lately due to several reasons that affected my personal life, which caused my to write this article in the first place. Now it’s been about a month since I originally started writing it, and since then I have understood that in my particular case, I didn’t want to just trade Guilt for Grace, but I also wanted to exude Gratitude to myself and to others.
And this is what I did:
I stop trying to be perfect with myself. No one is perfect. I gave myself permission to be human.
When I mess up, I wasn’t going to be too hard on myself. I gave myself permission to fail without stigmas, but with learnings and encouragement for the next go around.
I gave myself permission to not do everything or be everything for everyone. I could delegate stuff. I didn’t have to save the day every day.
I had to stop feeling selfish for addressing my needs. I did have to prioritize my wellbeing.
I made a point of celebrating those things that go well or made a positive impact that day.
Moving from Guilt to Grace has been a life changing exercise, that took a conscious effort, but that I will be forever thankful … to myself.
I have decided to take action, small steps to ensure I felt gratitude through the day even in the smallest things. And these are things I have done to build up just 3 habits to help me with that:
1. I started my day on a positive and productive, but peaceful note. I made a very conscious decision start my day early, and to leave the phone upside down and refrain from the temptation to jump on it to look at social media. I want to focus all my attention on what I want to accomplish in the next 3 hours before the rest of the world wakes up. I set up small goals for the morning before the clock hits 8am. Very small goals. But meaningful, that add value to my day. Today, was finishing up this blog post for example.
2. But before I get my day started, I grab a cup of coffee and pause and reflect on lucky we are to still be alive. I just sit for 3 minutes and focus on my breath, and I feel grateful. It is funny how we move through our lives so quickly and diligently without ever stopping to smell the roses, think of our accomplishments and pad ourselves in the back, or even just be grateful to have another day in front of us to live an intentional life.
3. And then I head to my office, where I seriously make a point of making my workplace a comfortable place to work in where you can thrive. It could as simple as picking up a paper I left on the desk the day before. Or just putting something back in place. But the whole point is to ensure we don’t sit down and go at it, it is more about setting the stage to avoid distractions and feel happy to be there.
I wanted to show up daily with my dose of Grit to strengthen my character and experience Growth, because I couldn’t develop into anything Great while I was living in Guilt.
So I will leave you with that, trade that one G word for another 5 G words, trust me, you won’t regret it. They add a lot more value to your life.
Trade Guilt for Grace, Guilt for Gratitude, Guilt for Grit, Guilt for Growth and Guilt for Greatness, and live a happier life.
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