on giving yourself grace.

olive packable puffer. chambray shirt. jeans. booties. felt hat.

Well, we are 2/3 of the way through January today.  Can we just agree that January is a rough month?  As much as we all have high aspirations for a strong start on the year, it seems like January is always there waiting to knock you on your butt.  Case in point: I had a great fun month of content planned on here, and then on January 3rd, Ava came down with the stomach flu, followed by Hannah on the 5th and 6th, Carter on the 9th and 10th and then me on the 12th and 13th.  There goes the first half of January!  So here we are on day 20 of January and this is my 3rd post in a month.

When things don’t go as planned it is so easy to get discouraged, beat ourselves up, or worse, just give up on our goals.  But I have one, simple piece of advice that has changed my life, made it possible for me to accomplish more than I ever have before, and made each day a lot more joy filled.

Give yourself grace.

It’s a really simple concept, but so powerful.  When things don’t go like you were hoping they would, when you didn’t get something done, if you made a mistake, slipped up on your new workout routine, or whatever it is, just give yourself grace and try again tomorrow.  No panic, not obsessing over what the perceived failure means about you (anyone else do that?), just forgive yourself, move on and try again tomorrow.

This is not a concept that comes easily to a person like me, I’m naturally hard on myself and have always been achievement based (I live for a good to-do list) so when I am not effective, I have a tendency to beat myself up.  As a Christian, giving grace to others feels very natural, but I think sometimes we forget that we need to give it to ourselves as well.

The true gift of giving yourself grace is what it allows you to do after the perceived failure, move forward.

Once I started consistently giving myself grace, I realized exactly how much time I was wasting feeling discouraged, beating myself up, and analyzing what my failures “meant about me.” Rather than just letting them go and moving on and forward, I would sit and stew in my frustration, and then, you know, waste more time where I wasn’t getting things done and it was a vicious cycle.  By giving myself permission to forgive myself every day in little and big ways, I freed my mind and my heart, so I could move on and forward.  I have been able to do things in the last year that I was holding myself back on for a very long time.

I spent the first half of January cleaning up vomit and being fairly ineffective in every aspect of my life. In my home, business, parenting, and health.  A fact that would have sent me into a tailspin of discouragement even a year ago.  But learning to give myself grace and move on, I’m able to start fresh even today on January 20th and try again.  It’s a gift I can give myself everyday and a gift I hope you will give yourself too. 

Remember, you’re human just like everyone else.  Give yourself grace.