I RELEASE you from trying to be good enough today.
{I realize that I may not have the authority to do this, but from one try-to-make-everyone-happy girl to another, just go with it.}
Just stop. You’ll never be the perfected version of you that you overlay on your body as you look in the mirror. You’ll never again be wrinkleless, or as tiny as you were when you were 19 or have as great hair as you did when you were pregnant with your first baby. Even if you cover it with trips to a really great hair stylist, under the color
the hair
is still
grey.
I know mine is.
I release you from trying to be good enough, to make everyone happy and to try to control the moods of everyone around you.
If your kid is grumpy, let her be.
If your mom is cantankerous, ignore her call today and return it later this week when she’s cooled down.
If your husband’s aunt won’t stop pestering you about your Christmas plans, nicely tell her that you’ll get back to her. After the New Year. {I kid.} {I’m not kidding.}
I cannot and never will be able to make the world a happy place. And neither can you. I might be able to make my space a more peaceful and grace-filled one, but I cannot make every person happy and generally, unless crisis occurs, people don’t change much.
Your brother will always hold that grudge against your one friend making dinner parties with everyone impossible. Your spouse will still have that one cousin who never says a word. At all. Your great-uncle will still say racist things when everyone has sat down to the table as if the Civil Rights movement never occurred. You will still shake your head and cringe.
You can’t make everyone happy and your family will probably do and say the same things they did last December. And no matter how much you try to do what everyone wants you to do to keep the status quo, they still might not be happy with you.
It has nothing to do with you because like I said originally, you will never be good enough. And neither will I.
So let us participate in a group RELEASING of one another to try so hard. To be so perfect. To be so flawless. To make everyone including the school secretary happy. They don’t need another plate of cookies, do they really?
Do what you do well and with excellence. If you craft for the holidays, do it beautifully. If you send cards, send them early and with intention. But all the extra stuff, the stuff that you ONLY do because others expect you to, stop it. Just stop it.
Show your appreciation for those who work hard for your family. Remember the teachers and church staff and the people who love your children well. But you do NOT have to buy gifts for each one. Send them a nice, handwritten note. Hand-deliver it and say something good and true to them. Tell them how they have affected your life for the better.
But if even that becomes an obligation or a burden, wait until January. Give yourself the type of grace that everyone deserves.
Please do the things you should do to love your family and your friends. Only YOU know best how to love your family.
If it means saying “no” to everyone and spending the 25th in PJs with cups of eggnog, then do it. If it means saying “yes” to your mother-in-law even though you hate driving the 100 miles to her home {but your kids love it} then do it because you love your boys’ faces when they see their grandparents. If loving your family means enduring certain things, then do it from love and not obligation.
But I hereby RELEASE you from baking cookies for everyone on your block, from denying dessert from now until the 31st so you can fit into the little black dress from last year and for Pete’s sake, from trying so hard to be good enough.
Tomorrow I will be doing a giveaway for all the girls who, like me, have tried so hard to be good enough. Make sure you come back to see what I’ve got for you!
If you haven’t yet, read yesterday’s post on what ifs.
How do you get over the work of trying to be good enough? Do you struggle with this?
Thank you for releasing me today!
http://comedytragedy-fightingsatan.blogspot.com/
Good post! Timely! Unfortunately, I am here to say that not even crisis makes people change (not necessarily). At last not lasting change.
Thank you for the freedom today, Sarah! And in turn, I release YOU!!!
May it be a beautiful day, enjoying the PEACE that comes with this Blessed Season! =)
xoxo,
~Michelle
(From snowy Denver, CO… Merry Christmas!)
yes! all my life i’ve struggled with this. i’m so tired of it, but it’s a hard hard thing to break. i’m with you!
I’m a little farther along this journey of living than you, and I can tell you that for some of us, this is an ongoing challenge. But, in a way, I’ve come to embrace the battle to stop being all things to all people and trying to make everyone, absolutely everyone in my family happy. I see this as a sign of how much I love each and every one of my family members, even those I don’t particularly like (something you alluded to in your post). It is alright to let some things go. But those things we can’t let go of may be more than obligations. They may be signs of how deeply we love.
Oh my!! I had released myself from Christmas Cards, but the guilt of neighbor gifts still sat heavy on me. Thank you. FOr the smile, and the permission to let go of the guilt! ;D
Love it, Sarah! I “freed” myself this past week when I realized that the simplest little things have become sweet traditions for my family. I don’t need to go overboard! (aka ONE tree and not THREE this year, keeping gifts simple, etc) This topic is especially important to me since we are celebrating two birthdays and an anniversary this month as well as all the holiday festivities. It can get overwhelming instantly when December 1st arrives! Breathe in, breathe out
Thank you for releasing me. I’ve felt so caught up in what I’m suppose to do for the holidays and ended up not wanting to do anything at all. Now I know just to do for the family and let the rest go.
Oh my word. This is just what I needed to hear today!
Love, love, LOVE this! A reminder I need to pull out of my back pocket…every. day!
Giving myself grace to only do what I’m called to do…now, that’s freedom!
Preach it, girl!
Even though you don’t “technically” have the authority; thank you for releasing me. My family does a gift exchange every year for the siblings. However; this year I choose not to participate alongside my boyfriend due to financial struggles. My dad choose to call me and tell me that he strongly encouraged us to participate because the money was not that much and it was not a big deal.
I choose for the second time only in my life to not listen to him and do what I wanted instead. It has been eating away at me because I feel like I am disrespecting my parents. But at the age of 27 it is time to cut the cord. So thank you because I needed that release. I am in the midst of letting go and it is one of the hardest things for me to do.
For some reason, I just cried (i never cry) over these words..
Diamonds aren’t a girl’s best friend- freedom is!
Thanks for reminding me to rest!
Freedom! Thanks for speaking truth and grace today.
This year has brought so much change to my life and there are areas I know I want to see major improvement over the next few years. I’m so much more careful to ask myself, “Is this (activity, ritual, person, task) getting me closer to that future me?” If not, I ask myself WHY I am doing it. If it is a commitment I need to finish or re-evaluate, I talk to the person. If it is busywork diverting me from the hard stuff, I move to an intentional task. I’m not perfect at it {of course}, but just doing it some of the time has already made me so much more content. I cannot express how much more peace this is bringing into my life. Thank you for writing such a beautiful declaration of freedom for us.
Love this!! Thank you for writing exactly what I am thinking! Hope many others read this and feel free to just be who God made them…not what someone else expects them to be!
Thank you. Just, thank you. What a timely word.
*sigh*
Thank you.
At nearly 50 years old…this lesson has presented itself to me over and over…each year I get a little better. This year an event I was struggling with was cancelled due to family illness. This has simultaneously freed me, and opened my eyes again to what is truly important in my life. Thanks for your reminder as well.
Thank you!truly encouraging.
love your words. they were so helpful today.
I was JUST telling my mom yesterday how I realized I couldn’t possibly do everything I wanted/thought/felt like I should do in time for Christmas…so I had to give myself the GRACE to NOT do it all. And, for me, that meant forgoing my ideas of handmade gifts and finding a good deal on something just as nice and special. Thank you for this post – I definitely needed these words!
I hate to say it, but with everything that has happened this year, one would think I wouldn’t try so hard, but I find myself trying harder to make-up for this whole year & how it blew my family apart. So THANK YOU for the realization and the grace that I will never be perfect & it’s OK.
Thank you Sarah! I really needed to hear this today!
I love this. Just love it. Like another said above, I cried a little while reading this too! Perhaps because it’s so freeing and grace-filled to just…..relax. Let go when necessary. Also, I probably cried because I’m pregnant and I cry at nearly everything these days (-: But why split hairs? A merry, restful Christmas to you & yours.
Oh to realize that we have an audience of One. Grace. Just Grace.
So perfect for me today. Bless you Sarah.
For a young woman, you are very wise. This 51 year old is very thankful for you today.
This year I have had to cut down, due to our meager finances. I have not been liking it at all. After reading this post, I really feel like it’s a good thing. So there will be no cards this year, it’s only one year! So there will be minimal baking this year, so what! So there will not be gifts for my older married children, they understand, and actually were the ones who suggested it! I need to take a deep breath and relax.
SO. TRUE. Thank you for your refreshing honesty – as always!
Smiling.
What do I do to get over being good enough? Well, from now on, I’m going to be reading this! You have given me a new lease on Christmas. So blessed! Thank you! Now to hit print . . .
Some great points, Sarah. Thanks for the reminders!
Sarah, I needed this today! I’ve been bogged down in what others expect of me my whole life. I’m currently in counseling to find my way out of that cycle. Anyway, I was reading through some of my blog posts from last year’s 100 Joys, and have decided to make a new list this year. It’s been a difficult year, and I need to focus on some joy! I remember how much I enjoyed the 100 Joys last year and think it’s going to be a great stress reliever for me again this year!
Thank you…I have just found my sister’s Christmas gift!
Oh, this is like my life battle…not being good enough. I pray, with all my might that one day, I will feel “good enough.” Like what I do is “good enough”, not worthless. This was a great article.
wow…you are so right!!!
as a veteran “people-pleaser,” i know how hard it really is to let go…to get real freedom.
for me, the battle is not so much WHAT i do, as it is about WHY i do it!
it’s like i convince myself that if i actually succeed in making everyone happy with me & still have them liking me…that i have “won” some crucial battle…how sad, how futile, how not-like-Jesus!
the only truly perfect person to EVER live down here…dis-pleased enough people that they easily filled up the roster of a huge mob asking for His death!
Lord, free me from the “dictatorship of the other person”…who turns out to be largely a creation of my own fears…which kinda makes me into the supreme god of my own little universe making all the rules…hmmmmm…
love you,
dad
Yes, Yes, Yes, I always try to please everyone! When I got married, I soon realized that my role was to keep my home peaceful (loving my husband with all that I have and taking care of him – making sure there is always clean clothes, food, and a clean home)! I still struggle with it, but I am getting better. Thank you for the reminder!
Did you hear that loud sigh of relief from Washington State? That was me. You are so right, all that stuff is bound to happen no matter how we respond or anticipate. So why not respond with the heart of God and love towards others? 20 years into my marriage and I am just now getting this? Crazy. And I so wish I would have granted myself the grace to just be. Thank you so much for your words. Today I felt as if you were in my heart and mind and wrote out all that I was feeling and all that God has been teaching me through Emily’s Grace for the Good Girl book.
So grateful for finding your blog (from Chatting at the Sky). I am really trying to embrace living my life–not being everything to everybody and caring less what others may think. It’s not easy…but so freeing–the times I am successful. Thank you! It is so encouraging to me today to know I am not alone and it’s okay to say no to something and be released from the feeling of guilt.