Well y’all, I’m sitting here in the sun on a couch in dreamy California, thinking about what to write during my normal scheduled writing hour, when it suddenly hits me.
I didn’t write last week.
My first thought was annoyance with myself…. I have reminders and alarms and calendars and AI (and real) assistants! I committed to something; how could I not follow through? And just as quickly, I got annoyed at myself for being annoyed at myself. Why is my first instinct to put myself down?
I’ve heard for years that the most successful people are often their own harshest critics. But WHY? Why must we beat ourselves up so quickly? I’m not saying we should let ourselves off the hook for every little thing; personal accountability and self discipline should be core principles of our daily lives. But shouldn’t grace and compassion (yes, even for self) have an equally high stature of importance?
A tale of two stories, again
Remember a couple newsletters back, my tale of two stories? Both versions true; it just depends on which one you choose to move forward with.
This week is the same dilemma. Except this time, I’m not even going to bother with Version 1.
Version 2 looks like this: I spent 9 days in Bolivia serving others. I had a 38 hour travel day back home, arriving around midnight. On Sunday I still got my kids, went to church and family lunch, and went straight into dad mode; clothes shopping for two households, supplies, lunches, meal prep for the week. Then a crazy busy first week back to school,
with intense work stress, EO events, and never fully recovering from the travel weariness (IYKYK). All that, and still traveling to California on Saturday for some needed quality time with my girl….
So my first reaction to missing a self imposed deadline should be disappointment and frustration? Nope. Reframing it: Version 2 guy had a kick ass couple of weeks back to back, and he deserved a respite. My “massive” following of 200 people, who may or may not skim my random musings, will be ok…! :)
Why I’m even telling you this
Next week I’ll be back to business tips and stories, and possibly a mailbag issue where I can finally start responding to what some of you have asked me.
But today I just wanted to be encouragingly real. I thought about not mentioning the skipped week at all; just moving on, and nobody would notice. But that’s not what this is for. This is real life. We’re real people. And reality isn’t perfect. Sometimes we miss the newsletter.
Every time though, we focus on the good. And we give ourselves (and others) grace.
None of us are “there” yet. And we never will be.
P.S. For those of you that wanted to know… the clinic saw a total of 1685 patients last week in Bolivia!!
Talk soon,
Ryan
Not Quite There Yet Guy
CEO & Co-Founder, Knowledge Perk | Chair, Gravity Center Foundation | EO Charlotte