Yesterday I came across a quote I used to love...well, I still do, but reading it again has me thinking. Here it is...

"Resolved, that I will live so, as I shall wish I had done when I come to die."

Jonathon Edwards

When I first read this quote years ago, I saw it as a 'cheering me on, let's take life and run with it' kind of quote. You know the ones: Make the most of every day, do everything you want to, live the life you dream of, and make it all count so when that time comes to leave this world, you'll have no regrets.

Great in theory...but life is a little messier.

You see, a few weeks ago, I relaunched my website and blog with the best of intentions to pick it up and run, and this time, I promised myself I was not going to drop the ball. When I first launched the site two years ago, I had a brilliant start, full of enthusiasm and great plans, but a few months later, it all stopped. Now, I can't be too hard on myself as a lot has happened in the last few years, for me, for all of us, and we all made the necessary decisions just to make it through.

However, this time, my intentions were clear: launch and keep the momentum! Write a blog every week or two, create amazing social media posts and follow through with all those tips and tricks that marketing experts flood the networks with. Instead, I froze and did nothing. No blog, no posts. Nothing. Now I knew what I should or could be doing, but every time I went to post on Instagram, Facebook or sit down to write, it didn't happen! Instead, I got waylayed with life! Important parts of life; family, friends, and other pressing deadlines, but I also found myself putting it off. Procrastinating! But why? What was it that was stopping me from doing what I had set out to do? Again?!!

Now to a certain extent, I have grace for myself (that's been hard fought), but that didn't stop those all too familiar quiet thoughts from invading my world.

"Maybe you didn't want it as much as you thought you did."

"Maybe you don't have what it takes."

"You never follow through with anything."

"Maybe this is just not for you."

Now I listened to those annoying but seemingly truthful phrases for longer than was helpful and so each day went by with no words on the page and no pretty posts on my profiles. The more I listened to them, the less I felt motivated or even capable of achieving anything, let alone the creativity required to write and dream, and the more insistent those thoughts became.

Maybe I didn't want it enough? Perhaps I don't have what it takes? And the thought of following through with some things is hard for me. Maybe I should just give up?

To be honest, I thought seriously about giving up and finding something else to do, but then something inside me rose up. And I started to think...

Or...

"Maybe things in 'real life' don't go as smoothly as they did in the perfect world I envisioned in my mind as I set out on this wild adventure."

"Maybe, the thoughts in my head were not the truth, no matter how easy they were to believe."

"Perhaps I was being a little too harsh on myself as the condemnation and the shame slowly crept in."

Life is full of false starts. We try something new, but it doesn't work, so everything comes to a standstill. Maybe something prevented you from moving forward, maybe those annoying thoughts convinced you it's not worth it or the circumstances and situations you faced pulled you away from the dream or the plans you had. Maybe you just gave up.

But none of that disqualifies you. It simply makes you human.

We put so much pressure on ourselves to live 'fully alive', to achieve the dream, and climb that mountain. All of it's possible, and some of it good, yet it can also bring with it feelings of despair and inadequacy as we look around at what others are doing and what we haven't yet achieved and decide it's all too hard. Either that, or we think, "we tried it once, and it didn't work, so why would this time be any different?"

But what if being human was about exploring all that was within you, one step at a time? What if living your best life was more about learning to take the pressure off, to stop telling yourself it all needs to be done now and perfectly and when you have a false start, choosing to have grace for who you are right now?

Dream the dream! Step out and do what it is you resolve to do, but be kind to yourself in the process. You are going to have your days when you feel like you can accomplish anything, and then there will be other days and perhaps even months when nothing you started moves forward. So if you drop the ball as I did with this blog, it's your choice whether you pick it up again and have another go; remember, no pressure. Life is full of grace. However, if you do choose to try again, what would it look like to be fully invested in that moment, strip all expectation of perfection away and be ok with "this time maybe..." because sometimes that's enough.

Fi x