There is no secret that life is messy, and no one will ever be perfect. The goal in life isn’t to be perfect. The key is that when you make a mess, you clean it up. Unless we learn to clean up the messes we make, we will live a life of chaos and eventually reach a point where we can’t continue
This morning, I put my coffee in the microwave to make it a little warmer. When I went to grab it out, I spilt it everywhere. I made a huge mess and spilt my perfect coffee concoction. My first reaction was to get frustrated with myself. However, I knew that wouldn’t solve anything. Instead, I made some new coffee and did a clean- up. Cleaning up coffee is easy; it’s cleaning up other areas of our lives that are difficult. However, the longer we wait to clean up the mess the harder it is to clean.
When I coach clients, I focus on coaching the whole person where we focus on deep health. Deep health has 6 components, physical, mental, emotional, existential, relational, and environmental health. This lesson could apply to all of these areas, but I’m going to focus on my top two.
When it comes relational health, this has one of the biggest impacts on physical, mental, and emotional health. When I have a client who is struggling in their relationships, it shows with how the feel, the foods they eat, and the effort or consistency they give in the gym. I am no therapist, but I do get to hear some pretty personal things from my clients.
As a general rule I would say that all of my clients know when they mess up. They know when they were a jerk to their partner, skipped the gym, ate like crap, or quit trying all together. It sucks to admit when we messed up, when we missed the mark, made a mess out of a situation, relationship, or of our goals.
Messiness is inevitable, the key is making sure you clean it up. If you made mess in your relationship(s), take ownership, and look at what needs to be done to make it right. If you keep drinking when you know it’s effecting your health, take accountability, and look at what you need to do to work on it.
Remember the longer you wait to clean up your mess the harder you have to work to clean it up. The faster we can learn to own the mess and correct it the better off we will be.
It isn’t about not making a mess…. It’s about cleaning it up when we do.