267. You’re Doing A Good Job

Take a moment today to look around life and celebrate all the ways you’re doing a good job.

Transcripts may not appear in their final version and are subject to change.

I’m Nora McInerny, and this is It’s Going to be Okay.  And I just want to tell you that you’re doing a good job.  You’re doing a good job. You really are. And I know you might hear this, and you might be looking for a way that I am wrong. You might be digging through your brain for evidence. that you have made a mistake before, that you might be making one right now.

You might be looking around at other people who are doing something similar and maybe doing it a little bit better than you are, maybe a lot better. Maybe you are so caught up in the comparison game that you can’t even see how well you are doing.  Is this a contest? No, not unless you want it to be, in which case, sure, you’re winning.

The point is,  You’re doing a good job.  You’re doing a good job, even if it feels so difficult. Even if you’re not smiling through it, even if not every moment is magical. You’re doing a good job. You’re doing a good job, even if it’s, it’s harder than it looks.  

And honestly, it does look hard. You’re and who said it had to be easy? Who said it had to be effortless? Most of the time I find things to be quite effortful.

You’re doing  a good job and that doesn’t mean you’re doing things perfectly. But have you ever met a perfect person? I haven’t, but I can’t imagine anything more boring. I truly can’t. Imagine something more boring than a person who has never made a single mistake, who, I don’t know, has nothing to improve upon, who has nothing to reflect on because they’re simply perfect, and how  Boring.

Boring. I’m not saying you’re doing a perfect job. I’m not saying it’s flawless, but I’m saying that you’re doing a good job. And a good job is also a good enough job. Something nobody told me when I was in college was that C’s get degrees. I wouldn’t have believed them anyways, because I was raised on a diet of gold stars, honor rolls. 

Achievement certificates printed on eight and a half by 11 paper and then shoved into a folder somewhere. And I’m sure I kept most of them. I was raised with participation trophies. I was raised with most improved trophies. And one of them is hanging on the wall behind me, but that is neither here nor there.

The point is,  it might not even be a job, but you are still doing a good job at it. And I find this important to tell people, and I find it important to tell myself, because most of the time we aren’t getting feedback unless we are doing the absolute best or the absolute worst. And not even the absolute worst.

If you make a very small mistake, you are going to hear about it from somebody. My husband gave our seven year old the wrong cup for his milk the other night.  We’re never going to hear the end of it.  We’re never going to hear the end of it. I allegedly. Allegedly. There’s no evidence to support this. I allegedly sent a kid, unnamed, to school with simply a peanut butter sandwich, no jelly.

I don’t remember doing this. The kid ate the sandwich. So again, no evidence. We, this gets brought up every week. This gets brought up every week. You know, it doesn’t get brought up. The fact that I packed a sandwich. Okay. The fact that I packed a sandwich. You are doing a good job. And sometimes in order to believe that you might have to lower the bar and that is okay.

You are doing a good job.  And one thing I would like you to do today is tell somebody else that they are doing a good job. Because if I have learned anything from being on this planet for 41 years and counting, it is that we are all just a bunch of  insecurities and emotions.  Stuffed into skin suits. 

Doesn’t sound very appealing and, uh, It’s not. Really. But most people are so worried about the fact that they might not be doing a good job that they can’t recognize or, or share that compliment with another person. But that’s not going to be you. Not today.  You’re doing a good job. So are they. So are they.

Everybody’s doing a good job today.  Theoretically, there are always going to be some exceptions, but we’re not going to focus on the exceptions today. We’re gonna focus on you. Go out there.  Do what you gotta do.  So go out there. Confidently. Stand up a little straighter. Put your shoulders back. Take a deep breath.

You’re doing a good job.