I recently bought a pair of patent leather flat, ankle boots - they’re very shiny but super-comfortable, and perfect for “Granny” days when I’m with Flo and Rory.
“Oh Granny! I like your snidey boots!” said Flo, enthusiastically, when she first saw them.
When I’m getting ready to go out of her house, she’ll bring them to me saying, “Granny, here’s your Snidey Boots!”
I guess I should be correcting her when she says “snidey” to “shiney”, but I want to enjoy it for a little bit longer because it makes me chuckle every time she says it, and I now refer to them as my Snidey Boots in my own head.
Don’t judge me!
I mean, it’s not like she’ll never learn the word shiny from anywhere else, and grannys need to be slightly batshit or they aren’t doing it right!
Seeing Flo grow up and learn how to walk, talk and learn all the other skills that will take her through the rest of her life, it always reminds me how annoying it is when we put pressure on ourselves to get things right first time when we’re adults.
I’ve had several conversations with people who are getting used to journaling for the first time in our 90 day group programme.
Some are instantly loving it, and some are struggling to make it a daily habit.
To the ones that it doesn't come naturally to, I always say they should aim for progress, not perfection.
We don’t expect kids to come out of the womb walking upright and quoting Shakespeare, so why do we expect ourselves to pick up new skills instantly when we’re adults?
When we’re small, we don’t have an inner critic. We have it programmed into us by the people around us as soon as we reach an age where it’s no longer cute to see us get things wrong.
Of course, the inner critic has its uses when we’re aiming to get better at things, but when it’s too loud it can halt progress altogether because it demoralises us and simply causes us to attach too much pain to what we’re doing - a sure fire way to make us give up.
So, if you’re in the process of bringing new habits into your life or learning new skills and you feel it’s just not working out, ask yourself if it’s just your Snidey inner critic you need to gag rather than give up completely.