Happy Thursday, friends! If we wanted to get really technical about things then today would be the eighth and final post in our Navigating Entrepreneurship series, but where’s the fun in that? I’ve truly loved sharing little nuggets of my experiences with y’all and having this recurring space to offer a little pep talk every now and then. What do you say we keep this thing going? I can’t promise I’ll be posting in a weekly format like I have been, but I’d love to create a spot on the blog to share business advice, encourage one another and hear from guest writers on different business topics. Can y’all get on board with that? 🙂

I know I’m not the only one who continually struggles with balancing life and work Even though I’ve struck a pretty solid balance after months of trial and error, I don’t do it perfectly every day. I have days where I’m embarrassingly behind on emails, dishes are piling up in my sink and I’m struggling to get all my orders to the post office. Real talk, guys: my life isn’t as pretty as it may look on Instagram. Truthfully, I hate letting people down, and any time I fail I am vulnerable to beating myself up mercilessly over whatever it was I did wrong. That’s where grace comes in.

A lack of grace creates an atmosphere where you are constantly down on yourself, berating yourself for poor choices or past mistakes. If you keep feeding those feelings of failure, self-doubt and unworthiness then you leave no room for possibility. Let’s be honest, here. You will have days where everything seems to go wrong. You will (unfortunately) work with people who do not properly value you or your work. They may even say rude things to you. You will have quarters where money doesn’t pour in like it did the quarter before. Emails will pile up, employees will get on your nerves and you won’t do everything perfectly. And that’s okay. Through every late night, painful client consult or day spent buried in your inbox, remember to give yourself grace. You won’t do everything perfectly because you aren’t a perfect person. Grace gives us the freedom to be human, to get it wrong, to pick ourselves back up and move on.

Grace allows us to trade unrealistic standards of perfection for attainable marks of progress. Grace accepts our messy, uncoordinated baby steps in the right direction and gives us the space to keep moving forward. Grace reminds us that tomorrow is a fresh day after one filled with frustrations and failed attempts.

When your inbox is piling up, the dishes are flowing out of your sink and every meal for the past week has been take out, remember to go easy on yourself. Tell yourself, “I will hold myself to a standard of Grace not perfection,” as Emily Ley so poignantly put it. We will never have it all together so don’t waste precious time and energy striving for a level of unattainable success.

Navigating Entrepreneurship Intro
Navigating Entrepreneurship: Start Strong – Part I
Navigating Entrepreneurship: Setting Boundaries – Part II  
Navigating Entrepreneurship: Time Management – Part III
Navigating Entrepreneurship: Stick to Your Guns – Part IV
Navigating Entrepreneurship: Community – Part V
Navigating Entrepreneurship: Stop Chasing Success – Part VI
Navigating Entrepreneurship: Dream Big & Act on It – Part VII