I know I’ve written about this subject before but it keeps coming back to me. It’s probably because I keep struggling with it myself, and because I keep gaining more insights and more examples to
illustrate the folly.
The folly? Thinking that I need to know EXACTLY how to do something PERFECTLY before I even started. If I don’t know how to be perfect at it, I can’t start.
Is the perfectionist in you alive and well, too? Do you hesitate for hours, days, months, or even years, to feel READY before you jump in? Maybe you never feel quite ready? And perhaps think that when you do [that thing you want to do], you’re going to get
‘caught out’ by someone, even though you really DO know the subject matter well? Or do you think “Who am I to do this?” Or “It’s not going to be perfect, it’s going to be judged and I’ll never survive the criticism?”
Oh man, you have my empathy.
A short diet story
Recently my husband and I embarked on a very healthy diet that helps to rapidly diminish inflammation in the
body. With the inflammation that disappears, weight drops off, as do aches and pains, while energy levels soar and skin quality visibly improves. It’s remarkable.
It’s called the Perricone diet, and was developed by a dermatologist who observed the aging effect of inflammation on the skin.
We started this diet about 2 weeks before our holiday started. We knew we were going to indulge on our holiday, and wanted to drop a bit of weight beforehand,
so we didn’t have to ROLL out of the car on our return. (Know the feeling?)
Awesome things happened to us, in a short 10 days. I kid you not, after 3 days we could see the difference in our face – less lines, and more ‘lifted’ features.
The remarkable changes are not the point of this post, though.
Challenges
The point is the first few days were DIFFICULT – not
because I had cravings (never had any); not because I missed coffee (not allowed on this diet). It was difficult because it took enormous effort to PREPARE the food!
No fast food on this diet… We had to prepare an omelette and big-flake oats every morning, with freshly chopped fruit like cantaloupe and berries. For lunch we had to have a large salad (with tinned fish like tuna or salmon) and fresh fruit. For dinner we had mountains of veggies, salmon and again, the fresh
fruit.
The First Morning
Andrew needed take his healthy packed lunch to work. So the first morning in the kitchen, we were preparing both breakfast AND lunch. We ended up shouting at each other very impatiently. We didn’t have our rhythm yet and we kept bumping into each other, each trying to make decisions and put bits of food into containers. It was chaotic.
