Last year, my Florida Driver’s permit expired. Besides the fact that I never got my license, I found myself in need of a new state ID. But because of the pandemic, the DMV wasn’t accepting in person appointments for months. After checking the DMV website for weeks, I finally scheduled the appointment for a date in September. But then I canceled it, because I was too tired to walk the 10 minutes to the DMV. I continued to cancel and reschedule my appointment for months, until I finally had a new date for February 24^th.  

As I prepared for my appointment, I needed to go to Fed-Ex to print some documents. I told myself that I would wake up early last Saturday and get there for when they opened. But I’m not a morning person, so that didn’t happen. I then planned to go early before work on Monday morning, why I kept setting myself up for failure I don’t know, but again I didn’t make it. So, I said ok, let me push the appointment back until next month, but the next available date was the end of April. As I sat there trying to debate what I should do, it dawned on me that I could go to Fed-Ex in the afternoon. And that’s exactly what I did. I went printed my documents, made it to the DMV the following morning, and will have my new state ID in two weeks. 

This experience taught me to not limit myself to the imaginary boundaries that I place in my life and to give myself grace. How many times do we set goals to work out before work or wake up earlier, and when we don’t meet these goals we feel disappointed and worthless? Instead of giving ourselves the grace to find another solution and more importantly to try again. I had put it in my head that the only time I could go to Fed-Ex was in the morning, that I completely missed the point that I could go anytime they were open.  I was the one who was limiting myself from achieving my goals because I was setting expectations that I felt I could not meet. 

So, when you set that goal of waking up early to go for a walk and then hit the snooze button instead, don’t be hard on yourself just adjust your thinking. Maybe go on your lunch break when your body is more awake and in tuned with exercising. If you can’t wake up at 6am to workout, that’s ok. All that matters is that you make time to put yourself first in a way that honors who you are. But don’t eliminate yourself just because you might have fallen short one day.  

One of my favorite sayings, is “I might not be where I want to be, but I am not where I used to be.” Give yourself the grace to understand this while you continue to strive to be where you want to be. Don’t let anyone, including yourself, limit you from reaching your goals.