Today started out a little rough - okay A LOT rough! I took the evil Series 24 test last month (worse than the evil Series 7 test last year!) and bombed it so I had to retake it. I walked into that testing room completely confident that I had it. I had studied my ass off and knew my shit. Or so I thought. Unfortunately I didn't pass and now have to retake it again. Ugh. I was completely devastated! I realized I was also extremely mad at myself. Pretty typical feeling when things don't go as planned.
I've been told my many that I'm a complete Type A Personality. Totally true! One website I found describes a Type A personality as a burnt-out prone stressed out overachiever. Okay, maybe that's a little harsh but that pretty much describes me in a nutshell :) It also means I'm pretty competitive and self-critical. This is where my blog title comes in . . . .
I am and always have been extremely self-critical from an early age. I'm pretty sure it started with a prior step-father who frequently had some fairly critical things to say to me starting when I was in fourth grade - not a good age to criticize a self-conscious girl about her weight, athletic abilities, grades, etc! I have some pretty darn high expectations for myself and am very hard on myself when I don't live up to these expectations. These expectations are present in pretty much every aspect of my life - work, my relationships, at the gym, at home . . . the list goes on!
After my reaction to the little testing incident this morning (that just sounds so much better than saying I failed a test!) and spending some time at the gym working through my anger while being a goofball trying to mask my feelings of being a total failure, I got home and spent some quality time reflecting on my morning.
I'm very aware of how harsh I am on myself and have been trying to work through that recently. I tend to have very high stress levels due to work and other things and over the past few months got to the point where I was physically ill (won't go into the details!) from stress. I know that putting extreme pressure on myself definitely does NOT help. Basically it all comes down to consistently reminding myself that I don't need to be perfect 100% of the time. I am really good at beating myself up if I stray from my diet - don't even get me started on Halloween's mishap! Or if I don't get everything done on my mile long to-do list on the day I planned on doing something. There are a ton of other examples I can think of but you get the point.
As cheesy as this might be, here are a few reminders to myself that will hopefully help me not use myself as a punching bag when things don't go as planned:
- It's okay to not be perfect
- Shit happens
- Treat yourself like you want others to treat you - heck if I treated others like I treat myself, I would be the mean girl!
- Breathe
- Relax and . . .jazz hands!! Seriously how could I get through a blog without mentioning jazz hands today??
Better a diamond with a flaw than a pebble without. ~Confucius, Analects
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