How to thrive, not just survive

On perfectionism, and fresh starts

“Don’t worry about doing it perfect; just do it well.”

Some day I want to be a multiple NYT bestselling author. I want words about my life, words I’ve written for encouragement and entertainment to be read by millions of people. Some day I want to go on book tours and sign books and speak to girls about love, life in your twenties, relationships, friendships, sisterhood, work, identity, family, health, and happiness. I want to share how I’ve been moving through grief— feeling all the pain of it all, and creating little and big joy even in it. I want to tell the story of my mother — the experience of a woman so well-lived, well-loved, and well-traveled. I want to talk about the hundred and fifty reasons I love my husband, and why more than love, it is a shared purpose that keeps a marriage. There are even more things I want to do that I probably can’t even imagine right now.

Once upon a time, I decided I was going to be a perfectionist. It was very short-lived, because what they don’t tell you about perfectionism is that it sets up a standard that is actually unsustainable for a long period of time. I found myself being held back by fear because I didn’t want to do something if it wasn’t going to be perfect. So I simply didn’t do a lot of things. I avoided the work because if I didn’t think I was good enough to pull it off flawlessly what was the point? The point is this — done is better than perfect. You know it, I know it, and yet we often let the fear of perfect keep us from just doing it anyway. I wanted to be a perfectionist because I thought that was where I would gain mastery of whatever I set myself to do. But I couldn’t have been more wrong. The mastery I was looking for to consider myself really good at something simply required actually showing up every day, doing the thing, little by little, again and again. It wasn’t that I was necessarily scared of failure, but more so afraid that people would judge me for not being better, knowing better, and doing better. As someone who has many talents and a lot of interests, there are often conflicting things to do with the limited time I’ve got. But as I mentioned this period only lasted a couple of months and I had to opt out of it fast because I wasn’t just being stagnant, I was actually falling behind on the things I was supposed to be doing. So I had to get out. The quickest way for me to quiet out fear or find direction is to take action. And so the first thing I did was decide to plan the first Save Spend Invest conference within about 6 weeks. Insane, yes. Doable, also yes.

I had barely been talking about and being known for personal finance for up to 6 months. But to snap out of this fear of perfection I decided to do something that seemed radical at the time even if it ended up being quite logical and worked out great in the end.

Anxiety and worry are such intense emotions for something that has not yet happened. Can you imagine it? We’re so tense and uptight and so damn worried about a future that … hasn’t come? I get it, but also I don’t. And like Myleik says (or more specifically her dad says) worry is a waste of your imagination. Because you could be thinking of literally anything else that is GOOD, that is productive, that is fruitful. And here you are instead, wasting that time, hours, and hours just thinking of something that hasn’t even happened, and worse still, may not even exist. Now I still get anxious myself, and of course, I worry about a lot, especially in a season of grief, but I really don’t like those two emotions. They almost feel useless because they don’t point me to do something, just to wallow and cause unnecessary headaches. So if you’re a chronic worrier or you also get anxiety attacks, I’m not discounting your pain. I’m just saying we need to redirect all that time towards something else and a big way you can do that is by taking action. Usually, any action will do as that will distract you and get your focus on something else. And even better is progressive little actions.

The thing about perfectionism is that it can often do more harm than good for us. We think it’ll help us be better, and be excellent in all we do, and instead what we get is laziness and procrastination. What we get when we let the fear of perfection rob us of the joy of the good, is frustration. A lacklustre feeling that you’re not good enough meanwhile there’s no data to actually prove that. The data actually suggests that when you try things multiple times you get better. Your odds increase the more you do things. But if you’re stuck trying to make everything flawless and without any mistakes, then you’re stealing the progress that comes from trying.

How to thrive and not just survive is to do things and do them often enough to watch yourself get better at them. I don’t feel like writing a newsletter every week but I do it anyway, whether or not I consider it to be good enough. My criteria for “Is it good to go?” is — have I written authentically? Is what I’m sharing important? Do I believe the message? If the answer to all these is yes then I press on. Nothing in there about whether it is perfect, or even “Is this the best that I can do”? Nope. My best is what I can do in the moment, and how I’m able to show up. Some days it’s 50% and if that’s all I’ve got then giving 49% is the best I can do.

Life has been so heavy for me, and I’m looking for ways to make it lighter and freer. One of the ways to unburden yourself is to not think too deeply about everything. My personality is mostly Type A which means I like to be in control of absolutely everything I can get control of. But after losing my mum, I lost all sense of the control I had. Or thought I had. I had always believed that even if I could not control things naturally, surely I could do so spiritually. Surely, God is a man who keeps His word so if he says that I should ask Him anything in His will He WILL give it to me, and I pray for my mum to stay here with us, and He says this is not His will, then clearly I am not in control. And boy, that has been the biggest lesson of my life so far. The good things and the bad things that have happened ‘for’ me (because all things in life happen for me, and not ‘to’ me), have all been within God’s control and not mine. Some things I will never get answers for. Like 4 years ago, why did my car break down and it cost me nearly £1,000 to fix it just before an international 2-week holiday?! And why did I stub my toe the other day? And why was I late even when I woke up super early and did everything to make it in time? Why do bad things happen to good people? We could ask all of these questions, but not getting answers shows me that I’m not really in charge, God is. And He has always been in charge.

Peace isn’t all the litmus test of whether we’re on the right path because we’re human, so our emotions usually follow the direction of our desires and wants anyway. Just look at the story of Jonah sleeping peacefully in a boat after running away from God. You’d be wrong to think that thriving means that everything in life is going well and that you are doing really GOOD. You can thrive even in the midst of chaos.

When you’re waiting on something, you don’t get to decide when it’s going to happen. God does. - Serita Jakes

You don’t always get to choose the perfect life, but He can make the life you have perfect for you. You could be having the worst year of your life so far, and tomorrow God can give you a fresh start and turn it all around. But are you going to wait until then to thrive? Because to you it might seem like this new job is really taking everything out of you, but to God, He’s like look at you go! Thriving, and making lemonade out of lemons. You might not even realise that a situation that feels like fight or flight can also be an avenue for you to thrive and break the ceiling. It’s okay to ‘rebrand’ yourself as something you hope will be the next best version of you, but even that can be a struggle. Your past self is fighting against your present self who is also in battle for your future self. Thriving looks like embracing all the versions of yourself anyway. The messy past, the craziness of the present, and even the uncertainty of the future. Live your best life anyway. Thrive, anyway.

Keeping God in the front seat behind the wheel is where I’m getting to in order to thrive, not just survive. Otherwise, I would be absolutely losing my mind after losing the greatest love of my life. I’m slowly but surely coming to the place of surrender, where I believe in who God is and that He is in control. And that all things working together for my good does not mean that those things will feel good. They may not even look good, or be good to me, but they will be good FOR me. I can sleep better at night even if I have a hundred things to do that are going all wrong because if there’s a standard God has set in my life after losing my mum, is that, He is STILL and always will be in control. Don’t you ever look back at your life and wonder how you’ve survived it all? All the trials, and troubles that life has thrown at you, and yet, here you are, still putting one foot in front of the other. Not because it’s easy, or even that you want to, but simply because you can. And you choose to.

Today, choose to not let the issues of life weigh you down. Tell yourself that you will choose the path that is light and free. That life’s struggles are part of the journey anyway, so keep your head above water and just keep swimming. And when the going gets tough, the tough ones rest, hit restart, and figure out a way to thrive again.

15/9

7:53am