Ruining the good in search of the perfect
How to offer yourself grace when you fail in what you set out to achieve
Perhaps you noticed, or perhaps you didn’t, but I failed to send a newsletter out last week. Over the course of the week I had travelled more than 16,000km, visiting four different cities. I was exhausted and overwhelmed. So, I let it slide. It was my first missed newsletter since launching Midnight Voice Memos late last summer and I felt a little remiss. I had been so proud of that streak, and I didn’t want to break it. Ultimately, my body won out. I figured it was better to allow room for the collection of thoughts, breath, et cetera.
This slip has me thinking about a piece of advice I received in my late teens from a therapist I was seeing at the time. I had been worrying about how I spend my days, worrying about my imperfect productivity. “You need fallow time,” she said “you can’t be doing doing doing constantly.” And then later “It’s important not to ruin the good in search of the perfect”
Many years have passed since then. I still think about this advice at least once a month. My therapist wasn’t, I don’t think, saying not to strive or push through discomfort to show up for yourselves and others. She was, I think, saying to offer yourself grace when you fail in what you set out to achieve—to allow for resting and regrouping.
And so, because I’ve failed a little this last week, for this newsletter I’m sharing some thoughts on how to offer yourself that grace, how to walk that line.
Big love,
Lucy
On imperfect effort and output
MEMO - Ask yourself, ‘what is lost if I don’t act now?’
Meeting deadlines is important. Squeezing an extra 30 minutes of productivity out of yourself every. single. day. just because you said you would is maybe less important. It certainly isn’t always sustainable. There isn’t a one size fits all answer to this question. It’s simply a way of checking in on the implications of doing or not doing.
MEMO - Maintain momentum rather than checking boxes
Once lost, momentum is hard to regain. There are some great rules of thumb out there about this. “Never miss twice” is one I learned from James Clear’s Atomic Habits. It’s simple and effective, if a little rigid. I also love the concept of scaling back and doing less rather than skipping a day, a week, a session. What’s really important though is to understand your own relationship to momentum. How easily do you gain and lose it? What gets and keeps you in motion? It’s often the small, easy-to-commit-to daily stuff that keeps us going.
MEMO - Zoom out a little, and take the long view
When I find myself overwhelmed or slipping backwards towards burnout, I try to remember to zoom out a little. If I’ve had a string of misses, it can help to reground in what I’m working towards this year rather than this week. So, I missed three songwriting sessions in a row. Okay. Am I still on track to put an album out this year like I said I wanted? And what’s essential to making that happen?
I’d love to hear from you in the comments: How do you offer yourself grace for imperfect effort and output?
Zooming out can be hard, but is worth it. It’s always interesting to me how I might be really frustrated with my consistency day to day but if I zoom out to the monthly and quarterly level, I’m generally impressed with what I’ve done.