EP 150: Summer Quickie - Imperfect Action

Show links:

• Amy Ahlers
• EP 111: A Conversation with Andrea Owen, Author of Make Some Noise
• EP 149: Summer Quickie - How I Know When Things Aren’t Working
• EP 147: Summer Quickie - Ditch the Negative Self-Talk
• EP 148: Summer Quickie - Everyone Sucks, Not Just You
• Join my book club on Fable!
• Add your name to the Deferred Maintenance waitlist!

Transcript:

Friends, it's still summer. So we're in the summer quickie series; we have been talking all summer about actionable short self-care activities and mindset shifts that can help you.

Change how you feel in your life this summer and beyond. And today is our last episode in the self-care quickie series because we're returning to school next week, and we couldn't be happier.

So in the first 10 episodes, we discussed completing the stress cycle. In the next three episodes, we talked about my favorite mindset shift, cultivating self-compassion practice.

And this week, we are diving into. One of the things that I have been working on forever and ever, and that is taking in. Perfect action. So how does that show up, and why is it important? It shows up for me every single day. My mantra is to show up. There are actually two rules show up and let it not be perfect.

So the most recent example of how this is showing up for me is I am writing a. book. That's right. I just started this week. I started doing the tiny book course with Alexandra Franzen, and  I'm doing it. I'm doing a thing.

So the reason this is a big deal is that I've wanted to write a book. For years, like the beginning of 2020, I was like, I'm gonna do this finally. And then just kidding. We're gonna have a global pandemic. Your entire work and personal life are gonna be turned upside down.

Everything you need in the world, primarily alone time and time to think uninterrupted, will be put on the back burner for at least 626 days while your child is still home. Add in a couple of close calls with some cancer diagnoses for some loved ones and some massively huge loss with the death of my best friend, and those book plans got put on hold.

Fast forward through the big part of the pandemic, the crazy January, that was the insurrection, the impeachment, and then the inauguration. And we get into 2021, where I just spent the year processing losing my best friend. And what does it all mean? And what does it all matter?

My business and quietly working with clients, but really taking a lot of time to figure out what I wanted to do. And when I came out of 20, 21, I was like, you know what? I really still wanna write a book. I really still wanna get my ideas out there through the podcast or working with clients, but there's something about having a book.

It's a big deal. And in 2020, I worked with some book coaches, including Andrea Owen. I interviewed her in this podcast, and Amy Ahlers, I was a guest on her podcast. Both of them are bestselling authors. I love all of their books, and they had a coaching program specifically for first-time authors in the summer of 2020.

I did that, and I got some really great. Frameworks around being able to get over myself to show up imperfectly, to let things not be perfect, and to work a little bit at a time. So my invitation to you is to bring the two things. I have mentioned the two rules I live by these days to show.

And to let it not be perfect for bringing those into your life, for showing up when you don't want to show up when you're tired, show up when things aren't working, and to prove to yourself that you can keep promises to yourself and that you can follow through, have the discipline to keep showing up. And let it not be perfect is my mantra.

I have spent my life thinking well, but the thing I'm doing isn't quite ready yet. It's not quite prepared when, when you really get down to it, it was because I was afraid somebody was gonna criticize me and say, ah, that's not good enough, or it sucks. Or who do you think you are? Hi, I have imposter syndrome, in case you couldn't gather that from all of that.
All of those internal comments. So that's my invitation to you this week.

Another quickie is to show up imperfectly in your friendships, your job, and your parenting; showing up daily gets easier. Showing up imperfectly gets easier, but it takes practice. It's not one of those things that you can just be like, and today I'm gonna do this thing, and it's gonna be the biggest thing.

No, it's small imperfect actions daily, giving yourself tons of encouragement, giving yourself tons of forgiveness, giving yourself tons of cheering on.

And that's what I got for you today. And in the famous words of Voltaire, the best is the enemy of the good. So let's get out there and do good work while we can if this whole notion of practicing an imperfect action and self-compassion and creating the habits that you need to complete the stress cycle sounds overwhelming to do on your own.

Remember that we are starting to build the 2023 cohort of deferred maintenance immersion. These are all lessons that we work on directly throughout the year, and we are going to start pre-enrollment in late November and early December. So if it's something that sounds like you wanna be part of, definitely join the interest list.