Why You Never Say ‘Congratulations’?

*Spoiler alert* I’m talking to you. About your attitude towards you.

We all have our slower days, or slower weeks, where it seems we’re making little to no progress in the path towards our goals. I’ono about you, but my slow days happen to coincide with my period weeks. Gatdamn, that dreaded Day Two. This month, my uterus was TRYING me- what I did to deserve this, I don’t know. (Honestly, all I did was not get pregnant- what’s the problem??) My day was bed-based, Ibuprofen-dependent and sprinkled with Netflix. It felt like I’d been achieving nothing all day, but I realized I was being hard on myself. So I came up with 3 things to keep in mind when you feel you’ve achieved nothing on a slow day.

1. Understand that you’re a human bean

   

Human beans aren’t quite as robotic as they like to believe they are. Their bodies go through things, be it fatigue or muscle pains or, say, menstruation cycles. And they need to give their bodies what they need.

Das you. You a human bean.

Seriously, productivity on your slower days doesn’t determine your work ethic. Whether it’s sickness, fatigue, cramps or just a day where your brain needs a break, sometimes your body needs what it needs, and you gotta respect that! You’re still a Boss-A$$ Bitch, you’re still slaying the game, you’re still a bad bih- you’re just riding the wave of being human. You’re doing your best and you should congratulate yourself for having goals to reach in the first place.

And then take a nap if you need to.

       2. Use a magnifying glass

A lot of times we think that the things we do mean nothing in the grand scheme of things, but have you considered maybe you’re looking at it wrong? On that slow day I had, I did the dishes, spent some time uploading my headshot to online casting platforms, applied for some jobs and did my laundry. Sure, I was in bed for a lot of these things, but that doesn’t mean that those things meant nothing. I recently started working on the habit of washing my dishes consistently throughout the day, and overall doing my best to keep my place clean. By 12, I’d already washed them. That was pretty great! It gave me peace of mind and something to feel proud of, even if it seemed to be a small feat. Laundry had needed to be done for a while, and I did that in the afternoon. It’s a necessary chore, and to do it on a day when I didn’t feel amazing was pretty impressive. It was NOT easy to get my ass off the bed to do that, so I deserved a medal for that, honestly.

The point I’m trying to make here is: even the basic things that we need to do in life can be difficult to find the motivation to do on slow days. You deserve to congratulate yourself for doing them. Did you wash a cup? Nice! Did you get the mail? Great. Did you eat some vegetables? Awesome. These “small” things deserve congratulations, too. Adulting is hard, y’all.

     3. Now zoom out to the Bigger Picture

In terms of my career, applying for castings is a necessity. It’s a move that can be exciting or a drag. Sometimes I scroll through feeling hopeless but I apply anyway, always putting my best foot forward. These things hardly bring immediate responses, so it’s easy to feel like I’ve done nothing that day if no emails come through. But it’s a move! It’s something that I’m doing for my career, and even if I’m doing it in bed, with cramps, for only 15 minutes, it’s still work I have put in towards my goals. Most stories we’ve heard of successful people are because they worked consistently on things, small as they seemed, until the breakthrough came along. But they would not have been ready for that big opportunity had they not made those smaller moves consistently over time. The little things we do mean something. Don’t pass up on the opportunity to give yourself some credit!

Even if you did only one thing towards your goal, and it didn’t bring an immediate sense of gratification, you still did something. And you don’t know what it will yield.

I’ll end off with a quote that the Universe sent to my tumblr dashboard cause homegirl knew I needed it.

Yaas queen. Congratulations.

Love