Good AND Bad
People make a lot of judgments every single day; it’s what we do. Judgements keep us safe, and they help us make decisions. But, we are also taught to think in a very black and white way. We’re often taught that things are either good or bad, and the goal is to get rid of the bad.
The truth is that nothing is 100% good or 100% bad. When we make goals for the future it is easy for us to picture a perfect utopia where everything is good and we have been able to get rid of all the bad. In the future we want to be perfect and good and we want to be right. This is unrealistic thinking, because life is not perfect.
When we aim to be perfect and don’t let ourselves exist in the gray area, we are highly critical of our shortcomings. Instead of life and even individual circumstances being either good or bad, shift your perspective to see that they are good AND bad. They can exist at the same time! Nothing is absolute.
Life will never be perfect, we will never be perfect, our friends, family, employers and employees will never be perfect. This doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t try to improve or be better in some ways, but striving for perfection is exhausting. Recognizing things as good AND bad will also allow us to treat others with grace and tolerance when they don’t meet our expectations.
As a learning and growing business owner, you’re faced with a lot of decisions. Looking back on past decisions you might think that you made a wrong, or “bad” choice, but try to look at them in a positive light and see how they were “right” at the same time. At the very least, the outcome will help you know how you want to move on and what you will need to consider when making future decisions.
Sometimes, life just hands us a bad hand of cards and everything feels really unfair. Looking at things as both good and bad at the same time doesn’t mean that we have to be positive one hundred percent of the time. Feeling your emotions is healthy, but after we process negative emotions we need to move forward. Through challenges, we can learn important life lessons, and this can be where the good is recognized.
So, give yourself grace. Find the good in circumstances that aren’t ideal, be okay with not being perfect.