Girlfriends!!
I know how busy you are - just grab your cup of coffee and join me for a few brief minutes to unwrap an important message I feel inspired to share with you!
For those who have been reading my blog or have visited my facebook page, ChersFit4Life, you see alot about living with passion! Today, I want to tell you what living with passion is NOT. Living with passion is NOT living with a standard of perfection! Should you find you are continually reaching for perfection, and no doubt being disappointed with the outcome, you will miss out on a truly passionate life! While there are a few commonalities in the definitions of passion and perfection, such as excellence and determination, passion is distinctive in that it energizes with enthusiasm and can produce a happy outcome. It is entirely possible and highly advantageous to live a passionate life...without the burden of achieving perfection. BUT try to live a life of perfectionism and see how well you maintain your passion! While passion gives energy, perfectionism invites fatigue! Check your energy level!
Girls, there are many areas where this might show up in your life and mine. I remember one particular Easter. I wanted everything perfect! Didn't all good moms feel this way? There were the baskets, eggs to color and hunt and all the festivities to make it a perfect day! I made a rabbit cake for the "fun" factor and picked a book to help emphasize the true meaning of Easter. Well....as I was reading the Easter story, the boys became restless and began to agitate each other and then started fussing and laughing over the cake and who was going go get what piece. Before I knew it, my cake was smashed right in the bunny nose BEFORE I got a picture of it! There were 3 pair of eyes looking at me for my reaction and mine began to fill with tears of defeat and disappointment. I can imagine how my boys felt at my distress, due to their mischief. Today, I can see that if I had been living with passion, rather than perfectionism, I could have laughed and preceded on to enjoy the rest of the holiday fun. I'm not saying a scolding of some sort wasn't in order but perspective could have put me in a more gracious state of mind. I could only think about how my special plans had been thwarted! Passion, Girls, NOT perfection!
I can offer one more very simple example from just two nights ago, with a better outcome: CONFESSION! I ate a couple of bites (nice size bites) of chocolate cake AND tiramisu AND cheesecake AND some other 4-layer cake I can't even remember the name of at a lovely dinner hosted by some of our dear friends AND I enjoyed every single bite! :-0 What a glorious night - a "cheat" night - woo-hoo! Make no mistake, after such a night, I am right back on my clean eating plan. I have my egg whites, salad, grilled chicken breast, apple and protein shake mix all prepared for today's fare but...it sure was fun! I didn't let one evening of less than a perfect diet de-rail me with disappointment! It's called having a passionate NOT perfectionist approach to being healthy and fit that allows for a deviation from the norm, on occasion (just not too many occasions!) so as to be truly Fit4Life, not just living Life 2 B Fit!
Have a great week and whatever your hand finds to do...I encourage you, choose to do it with passion that energizes rather than suffering the drain of perfectionism!
Still Climbing,
Cher
