Overcoming the Prison of Perfectionism and Walking My Way To A Healthier Me

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Thanks to my friends at Tioseban for sponsoring this post.

I’ve been so busy between mom life, blogging, and teaching that I let my health get put on the back burner. When you have multiple autoimmune diseases like I do this is NOT a good thing. I’ve been struggling to find time for exercise and after listening to some podcasts I realized something about myself. I live in a prison of perfectionism of my own creation. If I can’t do something *perfect* I freeze up and can’t do it at all.

This is no way to live. Let me tell you friends, this revelation has been life changing. Before if I couldn’t run 3-4 miles I just wouldn’t run. My body doesn’t always cooperate and sometimes my joints hurt entirely too much for running to even be possible. So I stayed sedentary and it became a vicious cycle.

What I realized is that SOMETHING is more often than not better than nothing. Walking is better than sitting, getting a few posts done is better than none, and grading one paper is better than grading zero papers. I’ve been working very hard to allow myself the grace to do some things just so-so.

So I decided to walk. Every morning I put the baby in the stroller and we walk big brother to the bus stop. After the bus leaves, we walk. It’s about 1.5 miles around the lake and we do it as soon as the bus leaves before I have time to make an excuse. At first it felt like a time drain and that there were so many more important things I could be doing. But with time I’ve come to love the 20 minutes or so we spend walking. It clears my head and is just a lovely way to start the day.

“A body in motion tends to stay in motion.” I have found this to be SO true. While my joint pain is still there I do find I have much better range of motion when I am able to walk each day.  

A Few Tips to Get You Started

• JUST START. This has been my mantra in all things this month. Even if you can’t do it perfectly, or as long as you would like, or as fast JUST START. 
• Try to get it out of the way early before you have time to make excuses. This has helped me tremendously. If I feel well enough for a more strenuous workout later, great. If not, at least I walked.
• Treat yourself to some fun gear. I’m loving my new walking shoes from Tiobeson! They are super lightweight, fit true to size, and the stretchy upper material dries quickly which is nice since Florida mornings are often wet! (free shipping plus 20% off with code DDM20 until Oct 31, 2019).

There IS peace after perfectionism. Allow yourself the grace to start even if it won’t be up to your standards. Something is better than nothing and we can’t be all things to all people. There are so many balls we juggle as moms and I know I feel like they could all come crashing down at every moment. Motherhood is beautiful but it can be heavy. It’s ok to not do your best every day at everything- sometimes just doing it at all is an accomplishment. So today friends, I, the half-marathoner, choose to walk. Wishing you each grace upon grace and the peace of knowing at the end of the day you did what you could. You are enough, just as you are.