As a woman, I feel the pressure to do it all.

Most of us do. Be the best mother and wife and lover and businesswoman and friend and sister and aunt and on and on.

Even when it’s specifically spoken that you don’t need to DO.IT.ALL.

There’s still that self-imposed demand to not get it wrong. To not muck it up. To not mess up.

But, I have a confession.

The past month I’ve shared all of my secrets, my exact approach, to staying organized.

And I may have made it seem like I do all of this to keep all these balls in the air AND I never drop any.

Well…

I’m a ball dropper.

That’s right, a ball does get dropped on my watch every so often.

It happens, a detail gets missed, a due date goes over, the wrong email goes out to the wrong segment.

I take the client down path A in a session only to find that path B was the better option.

Even though I pride myself on providing their highest level of service, I am not a robot. I am not a machine.

It happens because I am human.

You are human.

What I’ve learned over the years (with the help of a very skilled coach), it’s not about being perfect.

It’s not about balls NEVER getting dropped.

It’s about how we recover and move forward from there.

How we pick up the ball and get back at it.

How we allow ourselves to be human and treat a slip-up not as a means to berate or shame ourselves, but as an opportunity to see where it mucked it up and can do better next time.

Or where we’re spreading ourselves too thin.

And the places where we’re not putting ourselves in the #1 position.

It’s not easy to change the way we think we’re supposed to show up, the way we think we’re supposed to behave.

It takes practice each and every day to remember to enjoy the journey.

And while you’re at it, take a few friends along for the ride.

Photo by Valentina Conde on Unsplash in support of International Women’s Day