It’s easy to fall into the negativity trap, but you deserve better. Stop focusing on all your shortcomings and love yourself for exactly who you are. After all, imperfect is the new perfect.
Challenge: drop the negative talk
Why? Life’s too short to be your own worst enemy. Embrace your imperfections and focus on the positive.
Kerry: Only speak about myself in kind words for an entire day? Should be easy, right? Turns out I really struggled with this task. In fact, on the first day I made an attempt but blew it by 7 a.m. when I wrote something snarky on social media about my writing talents. What’s a sarcastic girl to do? Well, I realized this might be a behavior I need to be a little more mindful about, so I actually wrote a reminder on my hand. I’ve discovered I need some work in this area, and I need to give myself more credit.
Chaton: For me, being a mom has meant traveling a road that has had lots of ups and downs. It has meant having an enormous responsibility for which I have received no formal training. And I have made a lot of mistakes. Once, I was on my way to church and I lost control of my stroller and it went bouncing down a set of steps. Last Mother’s Day, I went to check on my daughter after a nap and she had taken off her diaper and smeared poop all over her crib. During my daughter’s second week of preschool I tripped over a crack in the sidewalk while holding my daughter and dropped her.
The combination of all of these mistakes and my desire to do a good job makes me anxious, a lot. I found this challenge very difficult. Purging myself of these thoughts proved to be impossible. However, I did become more conscious of these thoughts and tried really hard not to say them out loud. Since it was Mother’s Day weekend, practicing self-kindness seemed really appropriate. And, I think that becoming more conscious did make me feel a little better. Also, I tried to focus on my children, who never fail to make me smile.
Our Everyday Inspiration series wants to inspire you with small ways to improve your life. We’ve asked 20 women to take on a variety of small challenges and share their results. See all of our Everyday Inspiration challenges here, and meet the women here.
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