One of my most commonly used pieces of advice is “Give Yourself Grace”. I use it all. the. time. Constantly. But why?

Let’s start with a little story. Once upon a time there was a woman. She was a perfectionist and hard on herself, but that’s just being productive, right? She thought she should be able to push herself further than everybody else and do all the things all the time. But that just made her feel worse because it never felt like enough. It got so bad that eventually she didn’t trust or believe in herself at all. So when she became a mom, whooo boy was that hard. She looked around at all the other moms and felt like they were all doing better than her. Their kids slept better, or ate better, or had less tantrums. She felt like such a failure and felt like she was drowning trying to be good enough, patient enough, just ENOUGH enough for everybody and everything. Everybody else looks like they have their shit together, why is it so hard for me? Everybody else can do all the things, why can’t I? Which just made her feel worse. Sound familiar?

Secret #1 - Nobody has their shit together. The people that look like they do don’t even have their shit all the way together, maybe just like halfway together. No one has it together all the time. It just isn’t possible. There are just too many things to keep together. Stop comparing yourself to other people, you don’t know what they’re working with.

Secret #2 - It’s hard for everybody. Literally. Every single parent I have ever spoken with feels like they are failing at just about everything. If you’re killing it at one thing, other stuff is suffering. There aren’t near enough people saying this out loud, but I promise you it’s true.

We’re all working toward this impossible standard of perfectionism. And honestly, it’s just not helping anybody. A lot of us constantly feel on this hamster wheel of tasks to check off the list. There is ALWAYS more to get done. It never stops.

If my house is clean, I didn’t work out.

If I worked out, I didn’t keep in contact with my friends.

If I kept in contact with my friends, I skipped some work obligations.

If I did all the work, I didn’t play with my kids.

On and on, forever. And then the guilt seeps in. “I really should have worked out, look at all the other moms who have kids the age of mine. They ‘got their body back’ (spoiler alert: yours was never lost, but that’s another post for another day). Why can’t I? Gosh I am just failing at all of this. Maybe if I was better/prettier/smarter/stronger/everything-er I would be happier. MAYBE then it would all make sense and things would be easier.”

Secret #3 - You cannot live up to these standards. Sorry, but that’s just not going to happen. You can be the prettiest strongest fittest most badass lady in the world, and you STILL will not be able to do and be all the things to all the people.

The solution?

GIVE YOURSELF GRACE.

And I don’t mean the Jesus-y kind, but if that’s part of it for you then do that too.

At the end of the day, you did your best, no matter how it went. We are all doing the best we can with what we have at any given moment. If I slept in this morning instead of getting up to work out - that’s my best for today and that’s ok. Maybe I needed the extra rest. Feeling guilt or shame for not getting up and killing a workout before my kids woke up isn’t helping anybody. All it does is create MORE stress in an already stressful situation. Don’t do that to yourself, you really do not need any more stress right now.

At the end of the day, remind yourself that you did the best today that you could. If today you played with your kids but didn’t do all the laundry - maybe that will be on the agenda tomorrow. I’m not saying just ignore the shit that needs to get done (cuz we all know that’s not happening, that laundry’s going to sit there until you do it and sometimes we just need clean underwear).

What I’m saying is that beating yourself up over NOT getting it done isn’t serving you in any way - it’s just making you feel worse. Give yourself the grace to not be perfect and productive every second.

But starting off tomorrow feeling like you aren’t a gigantic effing failure? That’s pretty freaking freeing.

And it’s exactly what you need to keep doing whatever your best is every day.