How Doing Things Poorly Helped Me Survive

This is not an essay about motivation or productivity. It's about survival and what it means to keep going when your best barely exists. When you feel like you barely want to exist. 

"Anything worth doing is worth doing poorly." 

I've  had this saying in my head for a long time. I can't even remember where I first heard it. Today I googled it and learned it's often attributed to G.K. Chesterton. 

The original idea is simple; take action and start. It's better to begin imperfectly than to never begin at all out of fear.

That said, this is not quite the context I remember hearing it in. 

I may not recall where I first came across the phrase, but I vividly remember the mindset I was in at the time. I was, as Anne of Green Gables would say, "in the depths of despair." I was romantically involved with my depression. It owned me. I felt utterly worthless and useless. Even getting out of bed or taking a shower felt like an overwhelming task.

Most days, I did only what was absolutely necessary and then retreated back into bed. Hours of my life disappeared into doom scrolling. It was during this time that this phrase found me.

The context was not productivity or ambition. It was survival.

The question wasn't how do I succeed but how do I keep going?

Anything worth doing WAS worth doing poorly. 

If all I could manage was using a face wipe instead of taking a full shower, that was good enough. If I brushed my teeth for twenty seconds instead of two minutes, that counted. It was better to have a small, imperfect achievement than to do nothing at all. 

I don't know whether I found this phrase and assigned my own meaning to it during that difficult period, or whether it was meant to be interpreted this way. What I do know is that it stayed with me. 

Even today, when I don't feel like doing something I know I should, I return to it.

This phrase helped me through one of the most trying periods of my life. A face wipe turned into a washcloth, which eventually turned into a full shower. It may not have happened quickly but the point is it happened. Those small wins helped me begin to find my worth again. It helped quiet the voices in my head that kept me trapped in a dark place. 

I still hear those voices sometimes, but they are not as loud as they once were. They do not have full control over me anymore. Yes there are moments when I am tired and they win a battle. Overall I am winning the war.

I am still learning how much grace I have withheld from myself. For a long time, I defaulted to the belief that something must be wrong with me, I am weak, I lack self-control. It has been a journey replacing this try harder mentality with I deserve to have compassion for myself. 

Being kind to yourself is not a sign of weakness. I have become stronger and more capable since I began treating myself with compassion. I still struggle to treat myself with respect, but the small wins matter. I cannot undo thirty-plus years of self-criticism overnight. The relationship I have with myself was build over decades, and changing it will take time. 

Even showing up imperfectly and acknowledging when I am being hard on myself is a step in the right direction. I have years of shaky foundation to repair before something beautiful can stand securely. 

We are not broken just because things feel hard. It is okay to go through periods where we shut down. All it takes to return to ourselves is small steps. A seed does not become a flower overnight. Sometimes we need small amounts of water and some sunshine before we can emerge from the darkness of the soil. 

We just need to start. 

Living In The Wrong Season

A friend and personal trainer recently shared a concept she heard on The Mastin Kipp Podcast: the idea that, much like the world around us, our bodies and inner selves move through seasons. Depending on the season we’re in, the rules change—just like we dress differently in winter than we do in summer.

When I smoosh this idea together with Bloom’s Taxonomy and the concept of constructive alignment, something clicks for me. Suddenly, I can be a little kinder to myself when I feel like I’m failing.

Bloom’s Taxonomy and constructive alignment taught me something unexpected about myself: growth fails when expectations, effort, and assessment don’t match. I realized I was judging myself as if I were in a season of performance, while my body and nervous system were still in recovery.

When I expect performance behaviors during a season of healing, my nervous system pushes back, something I explore more in how I approach habits and safety here.

As I learn more about adult education and self-improvement, I keep discovering just how much I didn’t know about myself—and how much grace I was missing.

So when we’re struggling to build ourselves, maybe it’s not because we’re incapable. Maybe we’re simply trying to do the right thing in the wrong season. The rules of the season we’re in don’t always align with what we want to accomplish. We assess ourselves by standards that are unfair for our current abilities. Perhaps aligning our goals to something more achievable for our time and place is what actually helps us move forward.

Lately, I feel like I’ve been in a season of healing and rest for a very long time. I’d love to spend more time in other seasons of my body. Strength and performance seasons feel like a dream I’d love to step into. Optimization season is something I seem to reach only in my work life. I’d like that to show up more personally—but for now, I’d be happy just seeing a glimpse of strength or performance.

Some people might say I was in a strength season after my dad passed away. I was often described as strong and resilient. But that’s how grief looks from the outside. Inside, through both the pain and the growth, I know I was still healing—doing only the small things necessary to make it through the next day, or the next week.

I appreciate healing. I truly do. But I also want to grow. I want to flourish.
Healing has asked me for patience.
Growth is asking me for hope.
Right now, those two desires don’t always get along.

Like orchids, we are most admired during our flowering season—but blooms require rest. Flowering takes immense energy, and during dormant seasons, plants heal and concentrate nutrients into their root systems. For the first time, my roots feel…content. And now, I want to know what colour flowers I’ve been hiding.

Just because it’s winter doesn’t mean we won’t have warm, sunny days. I like to think the same is true when we’re in a season of rest. There can still be moments of strength and performance—little flashes of spring or fall.

Fall is my favourite season. If I ever return to a personal season of performance, I hope it brings with it that familiar feeling of alignment, meaning, and quiet success.

Maybe I’m not done resting yet. Or maybe I’m standing at the edge of something new. Either way, I’m learning that growth isn’t about forcing the next season—it’s about noticing when the soil has finally softened.

If my roots are strong now, then perhaps blooming isn’t something I need to keep chasing. Maybe it will arrive when it’s ready. And when it does, I hope I recognize myself in the colours