I have a confession to make: I don’t have my shit together. The past couple months have been hectic. I’ve been anxious, overwhelmed, disappointed & tired. My plate is too full and I’m about to drop it. And if I do I know it’ll shatter all over l the ground, and the “5 Second Rule” won’t save much of it at all.

In September, one of aims for this blog was to focus on making and achieving personal goals. Ironically, this goal was never completed. I got halfway there then life hit.

But you know what, that’s okay. We can’t achieve EVERY goal we make. We can only do our best and give all we have. And honestly, I feel like this has been a season where I’ve run out of all I’ve had. I have nothing left to give.

This has forced me to take a step back and reset. To reassess my goals. And I want to be honest with you and share this process with you. I also hope that by sharing this, I can release and allow myself grace. Hopefully my own life can be an example of how, you too, can allow yourself the grace to make mistakes and not meet every goal you make. Because sometimes it is okay to have high expectations, but with the acceptance that these expectations will often not be met.

First, I want to share with you the goals/plans I had for the start of this semester:

• 1. To stay on top of classes weekly by finishing notes for that week (far-fetched from the beginning haha)
• 2. To work out at least 4x/week and increase weight lifted.
• 3. To keep my social life going and catch up with friends (whether in person or via FaceTime for my long-distance peeps).
• 4. To attend church weekly, serve, and start going to a connect group.
• 5. To start compiling notes for the NAVLE.
• 6. To get a minimum of 8 hours of sleep every night.
• 7. Work twice a week to save money for upcoming trips.

Now let me tell you what my life actually looks like, as a demonstration of how many of these goals I have not achieved:

If I’m lucky, I’ll fall asleep by midnight, only to wake up at 6:30am so I can cycle to campus for a long day of lectures which end around 4pm most days. I’m way behind on notes for these lectures and only have time to go to the gym 3x/week. At the gym, I’m barely increasing weight and mostly maintaining weight I can lift. I have few notes for the NAVLE and am already stressing about my final year of vet school. And though I go to church on Sundays, I’ve had to reset the focus in which I am serving. With so much stress and unexpected events, I’ve had to cut back my work hours to one shift a week. It’s November and I’m only now realizing that my wall calendar is still on ‘September’. Overall, I feel like I’ve failed myself and others. I’ve lacked the capacity to give it my all. This semester started with me saying ‘yes’ to so many things, and now I’ve been only saying ‘no’ because I honestly can’t take on anything else. I’ve needed to cut back and slow down.

Ironically enough, in the midst of putting this article post together, I got into a little cycling accident. Luckily I was wearing my helmet which saved my life!! I walked away with no broken bones and only a chipped tooth and scrapes and bruises all over. This set me behind on school work and my fitness routine. Not to mention I’ve been stuck eating soft foods for a couple weeks. So with constant pain and minimal nutrition for a week, I was not a happy camper. However, I’m back to cycling now and healing up, but it was just an example of how we can’t control every aspect of our lives; no matter how organized and focused we are, life never goes exactly as planned.

This is just life. We can set ourselves lists of goals and plan things out for the next two years. But, we can’t do it all, and plans can’t always go accordingly. We need to realize this. That we are fragile imperfect beings who are not capable of balancing it all perfectly. We cannot be strong all the time. 

Sometimes what we need is rest. To slow down, stop and just be. To allow ourselves the grace in the times which we feel weak. For me, as someone who is constantly on the go and says ‘yes’ far too much, it nearly takes a mental breakdown for me to finally stop and start saying ‘no’. This time, it felt like the cycling accident was the final blow which forced me to slow down and take it easy. It weirdly gave me a chance to rest, which is something I don’t normally choose for myself. But honestly, it was the perfect time for me to reset. 

I’m not saying y’all need some traumatic experience to give you rest. But often we are so busy running around that in times of need – times of desperation – we don’t even know we need help. We don’t have time to recognize that we’re drowning. It’s in these times that I feel God is even more adamant that I recognize the truth behind it all. He shows me themes in every day life through the words of people and the written Word. Below are just a few of the verses which I came across, and really impacted me.

“My grace is always more than enough for you, and my power finds its full expression through your weakness. So I will celebrate my weaknesses, for when I’m weak I sense more deeply the mighty power of Christ living in me.”  -2 Corinthians 12:9

“Return to your rest, my soul, for the Lord has been good to you.”  -Psalm 116:7

“Be still, and know that I am God.”  -Psalm 46:10

Even God emphasizes that it’s okay to fail. It’s okay to rest. It’s okay if you don’t have it all together. It’ll be okay if things don’t go as planned. And if you have unmet goals, that’s okay. This means we have a chance to reset (more than once even!) and we have a God who is big enough and strong enough to fill in the gaps. Maybe you need to re-evaulate your expectations, but that’s okay. It takes more strength to know where you may be falling behind and to take the necessary actions to get back on track.

My hope in sharing all this is that you can know yourself deeper and recognize when things may start becoming too much. And that you have the chance to slow down before the wave hits and you feel like you’re drowning in every day life. I hope you can take a deep breath and know that where you are now is okay. You’re not a failure if you have unmet goals or expectations. If you’re doing all you can, that’s enough. There will always be things that need to be done. Luckily, there is still time and there are so many more opportunities ahead. This is not the last chance, this is not the end. Allow yourself some grace and rest. Be still and have peace. You don’t need to achieve every goal you make, and you can’t control life. And that’s okay.