Made in Cosmos

I am very often my own worst critic. No matter how much I accomplish, one silly mistake can ruin it all in my eyes. No matter how many challenges I overcome, it doesn’t really matter if I haven’t done it all.

Either I cross a couple things off my todo list, and then feel guilty about all the other things I didn’t have a chance to do, or give up before even trying, get stuck on procrastination, and feel even more guilty. This is a game where you can only lose, and I’m losing it, many times.

No matter how hard I try, there’s always more emails waiting in my inbox. More friends I haven’t replied to in months, even though I miss them dearly. More colleagues at work asking for help with resolving even more customers’ problems. More feedback requests to reply to. More inspiring people to reach out to. More self-care rituals I’ve completely neglected. More, more, more, always some more.

There’s always so much more I could be doing at any given time.

And if I’m not doing it, it must be because I’m a failure.

With time, even the things that were meant to be a treat feel like a pesky chore. For a few weeks I promised myself a nice long bubble bath with candles and a book to wind down. When it dawned on me how long I’ve been putting it off, guess what? I felt crazy guilty about it. About not having a fucking bubble bath! I really wish I could say I made this stuff up.

Now that I’ve committed to posting here every day, it’s already been quite a struggle. Not just because blogging every day is hard (it is!), but because it feels like one more item on my neverending todo list, against which I will be judged.

Today in the Apotheosis Mastermind group we talked, among other things, about a summary of 2018. I’d already summarized the year when working on one of the previous posts, and thought I already had a good grasp of it. As it turns out, when asked what I am most proud of about the previous year, I couldn’t come up with even a single thing. There was always a ‘but’ attached to every sentence, as if I knowing what else I could have done this year, I had no right to give myself full credit.

I have a lot of reasons to be proud of myself

I’ve faced my worst demons, went through quite a few tough challenges, and learned a whole lot on the way. It’s just that now that I’m on the other side, I can see all the ways I could build up further on this, and take all the work I’ve done for granted.

There’s a lot for me to unpack in here, and it might take me a few days or weeks to understand where this comes from, and to stop perceiving the things I want to do as an annoying burden.

For now, here is a small self-appreciation poster I just doodled for myself to hang on my wall. You got it, girl. I am very so much proud of you. Look how far we’ve come.