How To Stay Focused On Your Progress Over Perfection
Ever wished you were just "there" already? Whether it's in your habits, goals, business, home or motherhood, we so often can focus on having to do it all perfectly that we forget we are on our own journey. In this episode we go through how you can strive to do better, make better decisions and stay focused on your own story. We also cover how to stop comparing yourself to others or where you think you should be and how this relates to three different areas of your life - from switching out toxic products, to eating better to simplifying the home - if we simply know better we can do better.
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Hey there Mumma, today we're going to be talking about progress, not perfection. This was a topic that has been coming up in my DM's for a little while with people wanting to switch over to living more low talks, or maybe they're wanting to change up their eating habits. Some women implementing some of the routines and practices that I've been speaking about in the podcast. And one thing is, is that I'm seeing so many beautiful women are trying to do everything too fast and are getting super overwhelmed and thinking that it has to be perfect.
So I just want to come on and encourage you that first of all, I am not perfect and I am absolutely still on this journey. And I don't know that we will ever get there because I think that we are always learning. There's always room to improve, there’s always more to do and I don't want to look at that as a bad thing. I think that that's a great thing that we can always learn more and know better and then do better. So I want to break these down because I don't want people to get caught up in everything having to be perfect, because I know that I certainly did when I started this journey in the different aspects over the last three years, is that the progress get so underrated and undermined for perfection.
So let's chat about it from a perspective of wanting to move to a more natural, low tox home. So you want to go from A to B really though, it's A to Z. You start out and you have no idea that the chemicals in your home are impacting your body. You've got all the bleach, all the store-bought multipurpose sprays. What else is there? Your laundry detergent, your dishwashing tablets, your personal care items, shampoo, conditioner, body wash, etc. Just pick somewhere to start.
So maybe you want to start with cleaning. Okay, well, let's just pick even one room to start cleaning. Okay. Let's start with a multi-purpose spray and a glass cleaner because you're going to use those a lot. Okay. Then you do those. Okay. Now let's change up where you're cleaning your bathroom with and let's make a bathroom spray.
Now, you all know that I love essential oils. And if you are wanting to get some, then you can, by going to my website. But this is where I love making the most out of having essential oils is making cleaners. Because one, it is saving us so much money. You can buy in the supermarket, a green-washed, and what I mean by green-washed is it looks organic, it looks natural, but then you look at the ingredients and it's not. A multi-purpose spray from the store that is labeled organic and natural. Then you turn around and see there's nothing natural in this ingredient list. It costs you like $6, where as making your own cost you $1. So I know what I'd rather do.
Now, let’s change up what I'm putting on my skin. Okay. So I'm going to change our personal care products, like our shampoo and conditioner and our body wash. And now I'm going to change my makeup. Now I'm going to change my skincare. And it's creating these steps of looking at what you are already doing and just making better decisions. And that's just what the whole progress is about is that you're already doing these things. We're already buying the cleaners. We're already buying the soap. We're already buying the toothpaste, the deodorant, the laundry wash, the dishwashing liquid. We're already doing that. So let's just look at how we can do better options. And there's different ways you can do it. You can do it topic by topic or you could do it room by room. There's lots of different ways that you can do it. But the point is is that it's not about doing it all or nothing.
If you do want to go all in and do it all in, then I highly commend you and let me know because I'm absolutely more than happy to help you out too. But the way that I do it and the way that I encourage people to do it, so they're not so overwhelmed and find themselves getting too stuck, reverting back to their old ways, is to just do a little bit at a time. And shameless plug but if you are looking at it, then using essential oils is so much cheaper, you know, that they're pure, so make sure you go to my website and then you get access to all our eBooks and resources to help you make these changes at your pace.
It's about your progress, not Susie's progress next to you. It's about you and your family and your progress, and what is your priority to change. So that's looking at it from moving to a more low tox home.
Now let's talk about food because this is one that my family, we are very much still on this journey and we'll be on this journey for a while. So over the last, it's probably been really the last 18 months that we have, well, I have been looking very much intentionally at what we are eating and what we are buying. So if I do the grocery shop, it is a very, very different to when my husband does the grocery shop. So now we do the grocery shop together and it is interesting. And it's probably where we have most of our disagreements. We were in the store the other day, I don't even remember what we were buying but I think it was corn chips. He wanted to get this brand of corn chips, and I wanted to get this brand of conduits, which sounds ridiculous, but the brand that I wanted didn't have numbers and the brand that he wanted had numbers. And that's just one thing that as part of our progress with eating better is eliminating preservatives and additives and colours and flavours. So the way that I've started doing it is reading the ingredients. And if it has a number in it, it goes back because I've started researching and looking at what those particular numbers are doing. And I see them coming up on my children's behaviour their skin, their sleep patterns, and even myself. So that's kind of one way that we're doing the progress, but we were buying, we were looking at these corn chips and he was holding them up because he asked the ones I wanted were a little bit more expensive.
And so we had a discussion in the middle of the shopping centre and people must've thought that we were crazy, but that's okay. And I was just saying, well, we're buying, we're buying the corn chips, right? So let's just make a better decision and buy the best option. And I really value our health. I really value particularly looking at what different types of food, how it comes out in our children, particularly I want to give them the best because I honestly feel like if I'm giving them junk food and full of artificial flavours and artificial colours and all these preservatives and all these additives and numbers and things like that, I'm not setting them up for a win. So what I, what I now do and what we are still working on is just picking the better option.
I would love to be at the point where we only eat organic, only eat whole foods, only go to farmer's markets and buy fresh local produce, but we just aren't there yet. And some days I can get caught up in, “Oh, well, they're doing this and they're doing that. And I should already be doing this”. And, “we should be putting our money here and that we're not there”. And that's okay. And that's what I want to tell you that it's okay. That you're not there yet. So just look for the better option and it's not the perfect option. It's the better option. So there may not be a perfect option. So with the corn chips, the ingredients in the concepts that I like to get from the supermarket is corn, organic, sunflower oil, and salt. Now sunflower oil, isn't a perfect option, but it is a better option than the list of 25 ingredients and numbers in the other option. So it is just, it's about the progress. It is about just making a better decision, particularly on things that you were going to buy anyway.
And I guess that goes back to things like your deodorant and your toothpaste and your body wash and those kinds of items that you are. You're buying them anyway. I really hope that you're buying toothpaste and deodorant anyway. So just buy a better option. It's just taking an extra few minutes in the supermarket to not just buy something because you're used to it, but turn it around and look at the ingredients and think, is this the best option? Is there a better option or is there something at home that I can make because that's probably cheaper and usually a lot better for you to make it. And that's one thing I really, really need to get better at doing so, but it's just about progress, not perfection and the same thing when it comes to decluttering our home and moving towards a more simple life, it's just about progress.
You don't have to completely minimise your entire home in one week, or you're not doing it right. It can be a slow burn, it can be a slow progress. If you need it to be, maybe you need to take a week to do each thing. Maybe you just want to do little bits at a time or a little bits here and there. And that's why when I talk about setting up the rhythms, like doing your laundry of an evening and setting that up so that it's ready to go in the morning or all your little habits stacking that I have spoken about. It's not about doing it all in once. Don't implement everything at once. Just do it one at a time, because the thing is, if you are striving for perfection, you're never going to get there because there's always going to be something else.
Whereas if you were just striving for progress, then you are going to have so many wins because you are always going to be making progress. And when you maybe slipped back, maybe something quite doesn't go to plan. You can bounce back a lot better because it's just part of the progress journey. Three steps forward, one step back, two steps forward, two steps back, four steps forward. One step back. It's just all part of the journey of making the changes, building habits, making better decisions, just striving for better, not perfect.
So I hope that that encourages you and helps you to know that it's just a journey that we're not all there. And don’t put the pressure on you for perfection. Just look at the progress and celebrate that. Celebrate yourself when you, when you do make progress as well. So hope that's encouraged you and blessed you and have a beautiful week. And remember that the Free As A Mumma course has launched. So if you are wanting to get in the nitty-gritty detail of what I spoke about today, really, and how to implement that into your life. And so, so much more than make sure you go to the website to check that out. And I will see you next week.