For those of you who follow the weekly Tweak It Practice, you know that step #1 every seven days is to sit down and celebrate what you DID get done the previous week.
That means if you scheduled 10 “tweaks” or small, meaningful actions into your work+life fit and only accomplished 5, give yourself credit for the 50% you did do. Celebrate success!
Perfection isn’t the goal; however, in the moment, that can be hard to remember…even for me.
For the past few years, we’ve been very lucky. My husband’s job didn’t require a great deal of travel. When I was out of town, I could rely on him to be with the kids in the evening.
But he recently changed jobs and for the first time I was scheduled to speak at a conference when he wasn’t going to be home.
My babysitter offered to stay overnight; however, because it’s the summer, both of my kids were invited to sleep over at a friend’s house.
The week before the speech, I meticulously scheduled all of the logistical planning “tweaks” into my work+life fit so that everything would be set while I was out of town. Or so I thought.
A couple of hours after my speech, as I sat in my hotel room feeling pretty good about how I’d coordinated all of the pieces of our new work and life puzzle, my daughter calls to ask, “Mom, I’m getting ready to go over to Kate’s house, but what about the dog?”
The dog. Oh goodness, I’d forgotten to figure out who would feed and walk the dog if no one was going to be home overnight! Ugh!
Expected at a cocktail reception and dinner hosted by my client in 30 minutes, I now had to find a dog sitter!
Over the next 20 minutes, I frantically texted and called neighbors to see who had a key and who would be available to take care of Honey (pictured above in all her glory!).
Finally, I found someone and made it to the client event, but I had to laugh. At the exact moment I’d started to give myself credit for 100% work+life fit perfection, the universe quickly reminded me, “perfection is not the goal.”
Something always comes up, but instead of beating myself up for forgetting about the dog and thinking, “Ah, I can’t do this,” I sat back and took a moment to celebrate success. I gave myself credit for everything else that did go well.
Can you relate? When have you forgotten to plan a key logistical “tweak” into your work+life fit and dropped a ball? How did you respond? Did you focus on what you did or did not accomplish?
I’d love to hear. Share your story in the comments section below, on Twitter cc. @caliyost, or on our Facebook page.