Even Oprah is winging it!
Perfection or Progression?
When you are scrolling through social media and you see the perfect looking posts of a perfect looking life, does it make you judge and compare your own life?
When you see friends looking fabulous, only eating organic foods, making time for “date night,” cooking from scratch, going to the gym every morning, getting their next promotion, driving the beautiful new car, spending the summer by the coast, and taking their children to classical piano classes, do you feel like you need to compete?
It is so easy to start to think – “I NEED to be that person!” or even worse... “I SHOULD” be that person!
It looks from the outside that they have it all worked out! They are successful, beautiful, accomplished, perfect parents with amazing partners.
We could assume that they had a 5-year plan and 10-year savings scheme, a pension top up, university already saved for their children, and new holiday villa in Tuscany!
They have it all planned- They have a strategy, and blueprint to take them exactly where they need and want to be.
OR DO THEY?!
We can have all the best intentions, all the best resources, but do you know what I have come to realise. WE ARE ALL WINGING IT!!
If you talk to enough people, ask enough questions and dig a little deeper, (as I am lucky enough to do as a coach...) once you see underneath the painted-on smile, and beautiful new car you might find a person that feels massively overwhelmed, a huge sense of pressure and guilt, and a striving for perfection that is absolutely suffocating!
This lifestyle may look desirable but sometimes it is more about the control and portraying an image – rather than living a life that you truly love, on your terms. Control is another word for fear... fear of the unknown.
Fear can restrict us and cause us anxiety and feeling unworthy. Instead of stepping up to our next level, we wallow in the perceived greatness of everyone else, fed to us by a society obsessed with image, comparing and marketing.
However, if you read autobiographies, listen to Ted talks or even talk to friends – What becomes apparent, is that the curve ball, that thing that brought them to their knees, was the one thing that completely transformed their lives for the better.
Divorce, diagnosis, heartbreak, disappointments, whatever it may be – has changed their perspective, their outlook, their plan and their blueprint. Things are never going to be the same again, and neither do they want them to be.
They NEVER predicted these circumstances, but the lesson that they have learned is in realising that It is the synchronicities of life that make it so sweet.
All of us are just one step, one decision away from a completely different life. The one thing that we do know, is that we cannot control everything! We can TRY, but what we know for sure is that we will all fail.
As Elizabeth Day says in her book – Failosophy – “All these failures have been part of my growth. Life is texture. Experiencing all the facets of existence – the good and the bad- enables us to experience them fully.”
We are all winging it! We have not always “got it together” We may be very good actors into making people believe that we do have it all together. Social media is the host for the stage that we choose to “act” on. But are they kidding us or themselves?
Trust and believe – WE ARE ALL WINGING IT!
We are all searching, all wanting certainty and answers. What we have not quite got to grips with is that we ARE enough. On our own, no frills, no extras. We can plan and prepare all we like, but the reality is... we have very little control of the majority of our circumstances.
We have a perceived idea that if we stay busy and on the treadmill of life... all will go our way. When really, it is only our response to life’s situations that we have any real control over.
Oprah was once told that she was not good enough for TV. Walt Disney was told he lacked imagination and Albert Einstein did not speak until he was four years old. Which shows us we cannot define ourselves by what others think or let “the plan” of what our lives should look like, hold us back.
No one is perfect, and neither are their lives. Regardless of how they portray themselves to you, or indeed how you portray or perceive them.
Think of that when you are comparing yourself, judging yourself based on a material lifestyle projected by others. Even if people THINK they have it all worked out- good for them! The reality is no one, not even Oprah, knows for sure what is next.
We are all winging it in the game called life, all trying to get through, all striving for happiness- whatever that looks like for them. Let’s stop judging ourselves and each other, as we go through this process. Instead, let have faith and embrace it.
We need progression NOT perfection!
