Being good instead of great

Another new favorite podcast of mine talks about this a lot; being good over being great.

The host Kendra, sweet with a little southern twang Kendra, gently soothers her listeners about how greatness is not the goal, we’re just looking to be good.

Now I’ve been binging this podcast since before Christmas and I am never disappointed with any episode. But I have noticed that this is a theme that comes up fairly regularly in her recordings. It’s never taken much of an impact on my mind. Until today.

I always tend to my morning pages before I sit down to write to you all. In my pages this morning I was talking about just how much I’m enjoying my wheel throwing class on Wednesday nights. How special it is to share the same time and space with Craig. How relaxed and care free I feel while I’m throwing. How it is so low stakes for me. Just an activity of enjoyment.

For minute on our drive home last night from class, I tried to calculate how to become a member at the pottery studio. While also balancing a CrossFit membership, teaching yoga multiple times a week, running a small yet very hands on business, be a reliable partner and a present mom. While I was chugging away on the financials, I realized that we could be seasonal potters if we wanted to.

Then 2016 hit me, “well if you’re not practicing at the wheel all the time, you’ll never be great at it.”

Side bar: a moment for just how weird it is to hear a voice in your head that you thought was long dead. Sneaky how those things can come back in.

I brushed myself off, switched gears back to being in the present moment and put myself to bed.

As I continued to write in pages this morning. Kendra hit me, I can just be good at wheel throwing. I can just be good at CrossFit. I can just be good at whatever I want to be good at it, because really my goal in pursuing something is that it brings me happiness.

So my new mode of transportation for my brain in starting new ventures; I first get to define what ‘success’ will look like for me in it and then I check in that I’m doing good in the sense that I am finding enjoyment and happiness in that venture.

<3