Things Aren't Black and White, All or Nothing 5.1.20

May is Mental Health Awareness month. So I've decided to share one thing every day that I've learned relating to mental health. 31 things I've learned in my 31 years of life. Here's today's:

Things aren't black and white, all or nothing. Most of my life I thought things were black and white, and I was very much an all or nothing person. If I couldn't do it perfectly, I didn't want to do it at all. (It's a miracle I ever learned anything with that mentality. 😂 And I would definitely consider myself a recovering perfectionist. 😉)

When I was in the MTC (Missionary Training Center), I was supposed to SYL (speak your language, the language you were assigned to speak on your mission) ALL the time. I refused. I had 3 years of high school Spanish under my belt. Anyone who has learned to speak another language knows that taking a class is VERY different from speaking it. I didn't want to speak the little Spanish I knew. I wanted to be fluent. Well, I bet you can guess what happened. I didn't get any better at speaking Spanish while I was in the MTC.
It wasn't until my 2nd transfer (each transfer is 6 weeks) in the mission that I decided to humble myself and just speak Spanish as best as I could. As soon as I did that, it didn't take long before I was comfortable speaking Spanish and even fluent.
It took me quite a while to realize that I was trying to force black or white on a gamut of grey. To say, I'm perfect at this would be a lie. But I try to catch myself and allow and accept things to be one of the infinite shades of grey.

This morning I woke up at 7:30ish and stayed up. By 10am I had met my daily word count goal, had breakfast, made my bed, and worked out. The old me would get all bent out of shape if I didn't do this routine every single day. The present me is proud that today I was already able to accomplish a lot. I realize that not every day looks like that. And guess what?? IT IS OKAY!! #heber #mentalhealthawareness#mentalhealthawarenessmonth #mentalhealthinthetimeofcorona#letsbereal #31in31at31 #blackandwhite #allornothing #agamutofgrey#infiniteshadesofgrey #lifeisbeautiful #may2020 5.1.20