My Summer Breeze Moment

Summer is here. I take a huge breath in and out, because I have finished spring semester at St. Kate's. My degree is nearly complete, and I feel like my next step is right on the brink of bursting open, like a hot summer breeze in my face.

The class was Leadership and the Art of Persuasion. It took a while to persuade myself that I am truly a leader, but I realized it about midterm of the class. My summer breeze moment dawned on me that I have been a leader all my life as a mother. The parenting role molded me into the person I am today. The results of my efforts are two awesome kids, and the opportunity to live vicariously through them and fulfill something in my life today, that I missed while growing up.

So I sat in class, pondering my personal leadership mission statement. That is when I connected the dots of raising kids and leadership. I accepted them where they were, let them make mistakes, and was there to console when they needed. I looked for the best in my kids and supported them to achieve their goals. I nurtured, cheered, guided, and accepted them all in the same breath in and out. Sounds easy, but it certainly was a process.

Crediting my journey of leadership to my kids made me realize accepting myself was the next step. As for the art of persuasion, well kids will persuade certainly to get their own way and what they want, but my personal persuasion was the path to enlightenment of acceptance and tolerance. I needed to take a chance on letting it all hang out, to lose the manager mask, and be a true leader as I define it within my heart. Leadership is an ambiguous term. It is really more of an individual path to finding your inner truth and becoming selfless. Just like parenting.


I struggled for many years to hold everything in, to do everything perfectly, to fit the mold and have a "plan". As I look back, there was my stumbling block. My summer breeze moment (this one was more like a straight line wind) was realizing the MISTAKES are the learning tools and PERFECTION was the roadblock. Perfection is unattainable. The moment I let that perfection breath out forever, clarity emerged. Today, I do the best I can in the situation, striving for excellence not perfection. Here's to giving up the vicious crazy cycle of perfection and just flying by the seat of my shorts.

Ya, perfection is overrated anyway.

Excellence not perfection will lead me on the path to happiness. Barbara Holt

The biggest challenge for me these past few weeks has been patience. And with the absence of patience I get exasperated. To counteract my impatience, I have been trying to do some positive awareness self talk....So here goes: What I know today is that I am warm, well fed, blessed with many friends and a great family, along with the opportunity to make this a great day.

So I will run with it. The best thing I can do today is give up the thought that I can control anything that happens. I can choose to react, or accept. It is up to me to be miserable, and sad .....or to roll with it and be happy.

The lack of patience for me comes from the fear of the unknown and wondering what am I suppose to do next. I sat in the chapel on campus this week, and asked the questions, "what next, what if, and how come". These were all valid questions I thought, but in the end, in the asking, it really got me nowhere but frustrated.

What I realized is that I need to trust more, accept that I have no control over anything and what ever happens I will make the best of it. I will look for what I am supposed to take away from the situation and learn from it.

What I learned this week, by Barbara Holt.

Patience is something I have to practice. For me, giving up control is something I will always struggle with, and finding a focus is hard when you are giving up control and being patient. It is an oxymoron!

The moral of the story: When I try to focus, I try to control, and then I get impatient. I am thinking there may need to more of a balance in my thinking. The other thought is maybe to expect nothing and whatever happens is a surprise bonus. It is so hard for me as an overachiever to live this way.

And waaala. There is the lesson.

Trust
Put away the need to overachieve
Have no expectations
Lose the focus - blurry is OK
and.....

be patient with myself.

I do not always have to be "doing something" or "achieving" to get my control fix. It is acceptable to be idol, non productive, and get a B on a paper if I have done my best. The world will not end.

My thought for the day....
Excellence not Perfection.