30 Days of Perfection

If I did the things I know I should do for my health, my family, my friends - my life, what would happen? If I did everything right...is that even possible? Does anyone do that? What if I did it for one month? What if I made a list in the morning of the perfect day and I did all the things on my list every day for a month? 

What is a perfect day? It would be a day where I grew, moved forward, learned something. A day that ends without “should have’s” keeping me awake.  In Martin Short’s memoir (which is entertaining, and surprisingly insightful) he talks about occasionaly evaluating his life in 9 categories. He's happy if he's doing well in most of them and working on the others.  Along the same lines, I’m going to break my life down into pieces that I continually need to work on. For each piece I’ll set a daily goal.  The idea isn’t to complete the tasks “perfectly” - I’m not, nor am I interested in being, a Stepford wife. The idea is to give it my best effort. To try. 

Part of the perfect day is growing from failure. Learning to fail gracefully and embracing “good enough”. To honestly try versus wishing I had. In a perfect day, I would be kind to myself, make others happy, and be grateful. Most of all at the end of a perfect day, I would be just a little bit further along than I was at the beginning. I wouldn’t be stuck, and left wishing I’d done it differently. 

The pieces of my life for daily goals...

1. Family

2. Friends

3. Work

4. Writing 

5. Habits

6. Whole Health 

  

For the next 30 days the biggest goal for my health is to eliminate straight up sugar (candy, chocolate, ice cream, etc)  I’m a sugar addict. I’m fascinated by the power of nutrition on health, and love nothing more than to read about the evils of sugar while eating through a bowl of dark chocolate M&M’s. I’m especially excited about this part of my experiment because several of my friends have promised to get clean with me.  We want to see how our health, moods, and well being are affected (or not affected) by being sugar free. If it doesn’t seem to make much of a difference we can gleefully dive back into that bowl of M&M’s at the end of the month guilt free. If it does make a difference (which I’m pretty confident it will), we’ll have to decide what kind of relationship we want to have with sugar going forward. I would love it if they would share their experiences here! 

The objective of this experiment is to see if it’s possible to live the life that I always think I should. If it is, to start doing it. To stop being stuck and move forward. If it’s not, to let go of the guilt, anxiety, and frustration caused by the dream and to be comfortable in my reality. 

I’m going to finish this last bag of jelly beans today, and start my 30 Days of Perfection experiment tomorrow, April 6, 2015. (Yes, I know this last hoorah thing is dysfunctional, but I need the closure). The end day is May 6. Along the way I’ll write about what my daily goals are, whether I met them, the obstacles I encountered, and how it made me feel. Not meeting a goal isn’t a failure. It’s an opportunity to learn and move on (at least that's what my therapist told me). Hope you’ll follow me on this journey, and feel free to share stories of your own! Wish me luck!!