All-or-Nothing: Can you relate to my story?

Some days I wonder what happened to me. You know, the girl who grew up believing when she was a Mom there would never be a pile of mail at the end of the dinner table. The girl who would always be able to see the bottom of the laundry basket because “it’s not that hard to quickly throw in a load of dirty laundry to stay caught up.” Yeah. Right.

I was the girl classified as the typical Type A personality: a far cry from a procrastinator, driven by a to-do list, punctual, organized, passionate. Yes, I was all of those things, and to some degree I still am. But to sum it up, more than anything, I was this:

All-or-Nothing

That’s right. I had an idea in my mind of how things should go and if it didn’t happen a certain way then I might as well forget it. If I couldn’t stay caught up on my mail and laundry then I might as well clear my entire schedule, ignore the kids for an entire day, and put all my focus on getting caught up until I could officially mark it off my to-do list. After about five years of living this way I learned this mindset was a never-ending battle. I was always beating myself up and missing out on precious moments of life because I was so fixated on the way things should go. I thought if I did everything by the book, then things should fall perfectly into place. Boy was I wrong.

Fast forward a bit and I’m still the same girl, but I think I have found the new me. I still have type A tendencies, but God has sanded my rough edges and taught me to relax a little. To pitch the all-or-nothing mindset. I’m now the girl (and Mom) that realizes at 4:00 in the afternoon she hasn’t brushed her teeth yet. And instead of feeling guilty about having to admit her failures at her upcoming dentist appointment, she is happy that at least she remembered *wink*. I’m the girl that catches herself turning to food in a stressful moment and 600 calories later stops and realizes that food won’t make her stress go away so she hits “reset” and doesn’t beat herself up over what just happened. I’m the girl that will take what I can get even if it isn’t perfect. I’m able to let go on those early mornings I get up to work, but have a little kid pitter-patter down the hall starting my day 2 hours early because he can’t sleep. I adjust. I savor. I now live for those moments because I understand that PEACE happens when you stop trying to control everything.

Letting go of the all-or-nothing mindset will take your #Peace to a whole new level. It has for me anyway. Although I wonder what happened to the old me I am actually grateful I never found her…because the new me has more peace in her life than she ever thought possible.