Does living a BAM Life equal Perfection?

Absolutely not! Living a Bold Authentic Meaningful Life means living a life where you continually seek to be the best you that you know how to be at the time. Living a BAM life means that you do not beat yourself up for doing the best you knew how to at the time. It means recognizing your humanity, which means though mistakes are inevitable, you choose to learn and grow from those mistakes. It means unconditional acceptance of you and where you are on your journey.

Although Iike to believe I am perfect, I have a couple of vices that I will share with you... in this judgment free zone… Namely, I am obsessed with purses, lip gloss, cupcakes, shoes, and hanging out in my bed – in that order. Being aware of my vices, I incorporated some rules to help me manage them.

Rules:

• If I buy a new item (except lip gloss), I must give away the same number of that same type of item (except lip gloss). Ok maybe I need to rethink the order of that list.
• I don’t keep cupcakes in my house. If I have a craving, I put it off for a day. If the craving continues, I buy two cupcakes. I am working to change that number to one, but he’s not through with me yet! And being honest, that number used to be six. Of course, that was not my fault. The cupcake shop had a buy five get one free promotion. Though being transparent, it also had a buy three, get one free promotion as well. Don’t judge me! Back to my rules…
• Do not stay in bed past 6:00am on weekdays and 10:30am on weekends. This is still a work in progress on the weekends but… I am a magnificent work in progress.

I really know that I am not perfect by any definition. Being transparent, I no longer seek perfection. A long time ago I recognized that perfection was the root of my unhappiness and my remaining stuck in the same place year after year. To be clear, from the outside looking in, I was successful but knowing the gifts God has blessed me with, I was not living to my fullest potential. I was content making an impact on the lives of my 11 clients then going home waiting to do it again the next day. After fighting the call to service, I gave in and began making decisions designed to better the lives of as many people as possible in the time I have. I am sure that without even trying, you have a picture of Mother Theresa and Gandhi in your head. If not, I bet you do now… Anyway, I am far from either of those people and the legacies they left behind. However, it was important for me to understand that my gifts were not mine and they were not meant to be wasted but were there to help other people.

Once I let go of the notion that I could only help people if I was perfect, I began to hone and strengthen my gifts. It was only then that I realized that my quest for perfection was ultimately affecting the life I was meant to live. This is when I realized that to live a Bold Authentic Meaningful Life meant that I would continually seek growth rather than perfection. That I would acknowledge my mistakes, identify the lessons, and use them to become the best me I could be. This journey also helped me to realize that my gifts are not mine alone.