Being Better is Overrated |

Please don’t misunderstand my heart felt, well meaning, always trying to be helpful message this week.

Because I do, and always will, believe in:

Healthy Eating
Regular Exercise
7+ hours of sleep
Vacation days without your computer
Motivational sayings and articles
Top 10 lists of things to make me better
Being nice to others
And always striving to make me and my life better, stronger, smarter, more fun and always filled with love and meaning

But is it me, or is there just too much stuff out there about how to make ourselves better?

Maybe it is just me – but I’m finding myself a little turned off by the constant barrage of ways to make me better, smarter, more successful, more energized or healthier.

Remember my disclaimer from above – I DO believe in all that stuff – I’m just feeling a little like I’ll never catch up to perfection. Just when I think I’m doing pretty well, another article gives me something more that needs to be done to really be on top of my game.

In our attempts to be better, we may miss our forest for other people’s trees.

I’m not sure what hit me the other day, but I couldn’t stand reading my usual news/social media feeds. I was completely overwhelmed with new morning routines for better success, reminders that a positive outlook was needed to get through the day, articles about how protein is the new (or old, I lose track) weight loss secret, and reminders that I was behind on reading the most important books of our times.

And I wondered – is it OK to sleep in every now and then, have a bad day and just wallow in the awfulness, eat a pizza, or just binge watch a great show?

Am I a bad person for these things? Why do I feel so guilty? Will I cause severe damage to my, or my family’s, or my business’s success if I take it easy and do something ‘harmful’?

Enter reality. We don’t all need to get up at 5am every day, take a cold shower, exercise, meditate, eat the right combination of carbs/proteins/fats, or always think positively to be better.

Yet society’s good intentions to help have created a fairly demanding level of perfection.

Instead I’d like to propose a slightly different ‘positive reinforcement development’ exercise for your ultimate success.

Find a piece of paper. Yes – old school – piece of paper. Sticky pad, unpaid bill, kid’s school book, whatever – no computer. (Science has shown that physically writing something on paper will help create lasting change to the way your brain processes what you have written down.)

Now a writing utensil. Pen, pencil, crayon – no matter.

At the top of this piece of paper, with your writing utensil, I want you to write, “I AM Amazing”.

Now, I’d like for you to write down everything that you have done, continue to do, or even have good intentions to complete over the past few days (even if not yet completed).

I want you to fluff yourself up AND I want you to be human. For example:

I ate ‘clean and healthy’ for a week!
I didn’t eat that 2^nd piece of chocolate cake (though I really wanted to)
I met my exercise goals this week
I had more than 5 steps on my Fit Bit yesterday
I meditated before I started work this morning
I dropped my kids off at school while NOT on a conference call this morning
I slept 7 hours last night
I actually got out of bed this morning
I am grateful for all I am blessed with in my life
I am grateful to have made it through one more day
I have a goal to live my life more in tune with what makes me happy
Today I smiled when I deleted one email without answering

Big or small. Lofty or real. Completion or Intention. We do and have done a lot. We are all trying hard to make it through life in the ‘best’ way possible.

So consider that your ‘best’ may include ignoring all the advice about how to be better and simply realizing you have made it this far.

If You Do Nothing Else…

Complete the exercise above. Enjoy YOUR greatness. And ignore all ‘how to do things better’ articles until tomorrow.