Hey, Me! Get out of MY WAY!!

Seriously, how often have you been frustrated trying to achieve a goal and you painstakingly seek out the reason you are stuck with no success?  Yea, me too.  Only today, I decided that I am going to point the finger at the person who is really screwing me up...ME!  Reality sucks sometimes, especially when you realize your at fault.  I'm in my own way.  It's a yucky feeling, that ownership of fault.  Knowing YOU did it, sucks. People instinctively avoid unpleasant feelings.  Makes sense, right?  Maybe you deny it?  Maybe you get angry?  Maybe you ignore it?  Maybe you wanna hide from it?

If you can't see me, then I didn't do it!

The "dealing" with it is the part that can make or break you.  That's life.  Mistakes happen.  Shit happens, right?  There's no way around it.  How you handle these inevitable life pests is what makes you, You.  Okay, so it seems like a pretty straightforward deal, pun intended. I hear lots fabulous positivity about mistakes making you stronger, better, wiser, and I get it. However, for me, handling myself in the light of these mistakes is one of the more challenging facets of my fantastically complicated personality.  You see, I'm a perfectionist, and perfectionism and mistakes aren't really good friends.  Like many perfectionists, I am harshly critical of myself.  Don't worry too much, I'm working on it, and that's where this all comes together today.  Being constantly critical of myself hasn't allowed me to praise the progress I have made because of the flaws I inherently see.  So, never having given myself the credit, I ended paralyzing myself. This is how I get in my own way.  Whether it's a roller derby goal, a manicure, a weight loss goal, a professional goal, or a relationship, I often don't acknowledge the greatness happening in my life.  Shame on me!  Sometimes I do, but it usually means I am seeing the rewards of helping someone else achieve their goals.  I don't know if it's because I'm turning 40 or recognizing that I'm teaching my boys by example, but it's time to evolve if I'm going to let ME enjoy my life!  Today, I "re-restarted" a goal that I have already restarted over and over and over.  It gets real old beating yourself up for the same stuff again and again.  This time, I am going to do it with my new mindset.  Sure, there will be setbacks, flaws, mistakes, but there's still progress hiding in there.  I'm hoping that giving myself the credit I deserve, however riddled with error it is, will allow me to get past myself and reach my goal...permanently, not perfectly. 

Right? 

That's the moral of the story, but now I have a completely unrelated concern.  I was having this discussion with a few friends the other day...why in the hell do houses continue to be designed with bathrooms right on the kitchen or dining room?  What is that?!?  I call it torture.  I hate those bathrooms. There is so much fear of using them.  Inevitably, I am forced to use them when there's no music playing and quiet conversation happening right outside the very thin cardboard door.  Oh, and it surely won't have a fan in there to drown out sound. Bathrooms need to be far far away from EVERYTHING!!  This is plea to designers everywhere.  Random and weird, I know.  Welcome to my random and perfectly imperfect mind. See?  I'm already embracing the journey. (wink, wink)