You're Crawling. Great. Now Walk.

If a baby starts crawling, do we yell at them to get up and walk? Do we demand perfection in the moment? That's the next step isn't it? You're crawling. Next is walking. Let's see some walking.

No! We coo and ooo and clap and celebrate when they roll over.

When they start to pull themselves across the blanket every two inches is a celebration!

Then they start crawling faster! And that's a celebration!

And one day, you see the beginning of the stand up. They grasp furniture and pull with their little mightiness. And you celebrate then too! Each moment is joyful, fulfilling, and you're almost in disbelief that your heart could gush over so much from something so simple.

They get to the point of standing.

Free standing.

Each moment you watch. Waiting for that first step. They plop back onto the floor. And you clap! (They fell over, and you clap!)

"Oh you did such a good job!"

Over and over and over.

And when the first step does come, tears of joy. What a beautiful mystery that this tiny human is walking! Well, stepping, because then they plop down again. (Even though the end result was them falling... we don't see that) They are closer than ever to walking! We cry and laugh and celebrate and if we caught it on video we share it. WE TELL EVERYONE.

"They took their first step today."

You are so proud. <3 As you should be! What an incredible feat!

This goes on and on through full blown walking! And another round of celebration and messaging and videos and attempts to get them to walk to you happens! And the milestones continue.

We celebrate, we cry, we are joyful.

And then at some point... we 'grow up'.

Inches gained and Seconds standing no longer seem to count for much.

Why do we have permission to stand, fall and be celebrated as a child...

but as an adult be met with judgement or lack of competency when our first step accompanies a plop back onto the floor?

If we treated babies like that... after their first attempt to stand followed by a quick plop to the ground... we would write them off in a moment.

Guess you don't make the cut. You aren't up to the task. Didn't get it right the first time. What would happen?

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Now for all my graceful readers who would never do this to a child, nor to yourself. Thank you for your leadership in your self talk. And for the people you share that mindset with in your life. <3 Keep doing it <3

For all of my readers who can resonate with the judgement after a first time plop -

here's your chance to give yourself grace. To give yourself permission to plop and CELEBRATE that you stood up in the first place. And to realize that you get to keep standing, and plopping, and standing, and walking, and plopping, and in MOTION.

When we start something new... just because we are adults does not mean that we have to walk right away. WE HAD TO LEARN HOW! WE HAD TO KEEP GAINING EXPERIENCE! WE HAD TO KEEP MOVING! We fell, got back up, and fell again. And eventually, we walked. Eventually, we grew the repetition and the muscle mass, and the muscle memory to reach our goal.

Faced with the expectations of the world (and let's be real, the ones we put on ourselves)... often times we want to go from crawling to walking in a moment.

Not only do we miss the CELEBRATION of each step in between...

we miss the build of the muscle mass and the consistency of muscle memory.

You have already done this. You have already proven to yourself that you can go from crawling to walking. What would it look like to give yourself permission to plop and be grateful that you stood up enough to fall in the first place? Where could you take yourself if you stayed in the game long enough to walk? How much joy could you have in your life by looking at each new tasks as a baby learning to walk all over again? What new skill haven't you taken on because you might not get it right the first time? What is in its stage of infancy in your heart waiting to have a chance to walk. And then run. And then ride bikes. And then Drive cars..... See where we could be going with this if we gave it a chance? <3 Plop on friends and go get em <3