To kick off the new year, I thought I’d tell y’all about the time I actually had my world rocked by my socks.

(Yeeeaaah I know that sounds super weird, but stay with me here.)

I’d spent yet another Sunday afternoon glued to my laptop, my weary eyes hanging half open, too glazed over to even bother trying to blink. My shoulders rolled forward in a near-Gollum hunch, staring at my precious work calendar, full of angry red alerts who by their very shade threw shade in my direction for falling short of my own unrealistic expectations. Despite a long list of deadlines met and achievements unlocked, I sighed yet another big sigh of defeat.

Defeat. Feet. Right, yup. I’d promised my partner a walking date before the evening rain hit. I slammed the laptop shut when I heard him walk by my office door.

“Yup yup, I’m coming, just let me grab some socks.”

Now my self-inflicted workload had left me a tad behind on laundry, so I had to dig for spare socks in the bottom drawer, behind the workout pants, left of the legwarmers. I grabbed a pair with writing on them that I’d gotten free from some points program last year and quickly rolled them on. It wasn’t until I’d stumbled over to the shoe rack that I realized that, rather than the two-word daily affirmation the pair was supposed to have, I’d accidentally grabbed two of the same word.

My socks, in bright purple stitching, proudly proclaimed Better Better.

As my partner and I headed out for our stroll I kept trying to sort out what the other sock was supposed to say. Do better? Be better?

Better than what? Than myself at this moment? At what point in my efforts do I earn the status of “better” — and is that praise dependent on a specific outcome?

(shrugs)

I’ve definitely fallen down that rabbit hole. Surging through life in constant pursuit of arbitrary goals, striving to exceed expectations, to score the bonus points, to win the big prize — fighting towards achievement milestones just to see them reset miles forward as soon as we reach them, bastardizing self-improvement into self-loathing along the way.

Needing to excel at everything we do is exhausting, draining any chance of personal satisfaction as we brush aside distracting accolades while hunting down our next fix.

Which brings me to this crazy idea…

What if, WHAT IF — we drew our power not just from successful finishes, but from brave beginnings, regardless of results? Reframe our measure of achievement from the lofty end goal to instead the very act of exploring? Let go of this obsession towards maximizing our potential at every turn, and instead, celebrate our perfectly adequate try?

Adequacy isn’t failure, and it doesn’t by its very nature breed complacency either, no. When we remove the barrier of exceptionalism, we set ourselves free to sample even more adventures than before. To dabble without deadline. To explore without expectation. To revel in the curious discovery of a new thing rather than get stuck analyzing whether or not we can immediately excel at it.

We can be better versions of ourselves simply by bettering our self-compassion along the way. Just think of how many cool things you’d have tried if you weren’t so afraid of sucking at it!

As Jake the Dog in Adventure Time kindly put it,

“Sucking at something is the first step to being sorta good at something.”

And I’d like to be sorta good at being good enough.

For the record, I have no idea what that other sock was supposed to say. But it doesn’t matter, because it said exactly what I needed to hear.

There’s a better way to better ourselves.
And I say it’s high time we better, better.