Michelle McQuaid recently tweeted about an article on Tiny Buddha, which really struck a cord with me.   “Top tips to stop stressing about being perfect so you can enjoy life”.

The thing is, I have never thought of myself as a perfectionist because, quite frankly…I’m clearly not perfect.  I try to be a great wife, a wonderful friend, an engaged employee, a role model mother, eat the ideal diet, do regular exercise, maintain an organised household…not perfection (that would be ridiculous right?) but I’m always striving for the best possible outcome always. I spend a lot of time noticing what could be improved or done differently.   This was something that struck me on my recent holiday, I found it harder to relax because I kept thinking about things that could be tweaked so it could be a little bit better…just little simple tweeks, tiny changes…but always noticing what wasn’t quite perfect.

So reading this article really hit me,   errr…hello Claire…you are TOTALLY a perfectionist, not because you are perfect but because you spend so much time thinking and stressing and expecting things to be best they can be. To be a certain version of yourself that is of the highest standard. And when you are stuck in this place, it’s hard to appreciate where you are and harder try new things because the idea of not succeeding in them makes it easier to not try in the first place.   Oh my goodness, this is so me!?

And then…another email hits (OK universe, I’m getting the message here) from another one of my favourite sites…ZenHabits.   A reminder to learn to let things go. To notice how much of our days we spend worrying about things going wrong or stressing about something in the future.   Most of the time these things never happen, yet we waste time thinking about them.

Oh, so true. I am so fortunate in so many ways, and I’m totally not perfect…yet I waste so much energy hoping and wishing and worrying that I am maintain the high standards that I have set for myself.

So today I hope you’ll join me in practicing letting go of expecting things to be better than they are, because they don’t need to be, and that is OK.   We’ve got this.