Are You Celebrating Through Your Messy Journey?

Do you ever wish you could close your eyes, count to three, open your eyes and find that you have reached all of your goals?

Or, have you ever wished that reaching your goals came with no hiccups, no failures, no trial and error, and way less effort?

Some days I wished this, until I contemplated this quote by Robin Sharma:

“If it’s not messy, it’s not real growth.”

I started to reflect on this and began thinking about the all things I’m doing daily or weekly to move me closer to my goals, and thought, “Why go through all this hard work?”

Well, for me, there are few things that bring me more satisfaction and a feeling of accomplishment than when I work really hard toward something and I finally finish. This could be something as short as a 30-minute workout or long term, like the feeling I got when I walked across the stage to receive my college degree on graduation day.

Don’t get me wrong. My point here is not to sugarcoat the process, meaning, is every workout fun? No, but the feeling of accomplishment you get afterward sure is. Is choosing a healthy meal over the greasier, saltier meal always tastier? No, but the feeling of knowing you filled your body with dense nutrition that is good for your body sure feels great. Is sitting down and being disciplined about completing your projects or finishing that book you started awhile back always easy? No, but it sure feels wonderful when you finish something you start.

What I suggest is to have the courage to dig into the hard work, expect it to get messy sometimes, and reward yourself along the way. For example, if one of your goals is to lose weight and you give your best to your workout, be proud and reward yourself afterward (just not with a piece of cheesecake!). The same goes for choosing a healthy meal. Congratulate yourself on getting one small step closer to your ideal body and health. If you are working on a project and you finally get it finished, book yourself a massage, facial, or treat yourself to a “day-cation.”

If you are at a place where you are yearning for growth in your life, I challenge you to not just desire the easy way, rather look to put in the hard work, wrestle through the messiness that your beautiful journey may bring, and enjoy the feeling of the little accomplishments along the way. If you do this, one day you will wake up and it will be YOUR graduation day, the day you have achieved your goal. You can proudly put on your cap and gown and wear it with pride, knowing that you didn’t cheat, you didn’t take the easy way out, you didn’t even get an A on every test, but what you did do was show up day in and day out, gave the best you could give that day, and rewarded yourself throughout by celebrating the small wins. No words can describe that feeling. You look back at those years and you recognize that while they were never perfect and often messy, the process caused you to grow wiser beyond your wildest beliefs.