Discouraged.

It’s what you feel when you’re stagnant in your career.

It’s what you feel when you’re exercising five days a week, eating moderately healthy and the scale just won’t budge.

It’s what you feel when you and your spouse continue to argue over menial things, but you just can’t get and keep a hold of perspective.

It’s what you feel when you realize you don’t have many “real” friends.

It’s what you feel when your children misbehave, and then you yell, basically misbehaving yourself.

It’s what you feel when your house doesn’t stay clean for longer than an hour or when the dirty laundry tower keeps getting rebuilt.

It’s what you feel when you’re not quite sure where or who to give your attention and energy.

It’s what you feel when you work really hard to improve as an employee or a business owner, a friend, daughter, sibling, spouse and as a parent, but you’re just not sure you’re getting any better at any of it.

Defeated.

It’s what I will never feel; for too long anyway.

It’s allowing something or someone else to “win” your life and take over your thoughts and feelings.

It’s losing hope that on the horizon is a better day and an improved you.

Motivated.

It’s what I freakin’ am, and it is what will enable me to become the person I want to be, both in and outside of my home.

As a thirty-two-year-old woman who is in business for herself, building her brand, with three young kids, two dogs, and an overworked spouse, I often feel discouraged, but I do not let it defeat me.

I take that dispiritment and chuck it out the flippin’ window and use its transient presence to fuel me.

Listen, some of you are reading this and are wishing I would speak for my damn self, but please hear me when I say that I am.

I more than understand that all this mumbo-jumbo shiitake nonsense I’m spewing may come across to some of you as just that.

However, there are a few of you that will read this and feel inspired; those that will form a newfound enthusiasm to push past all the bullsh*t of feeling not good enough.

You are good enough —

at work

at home

in your community

You are good enough, and so am I, and get this — we are good enough JUST. AS. WE. ARE.

So, fine, go ahead and feel discouraged today if you need to, but do not feel defeated.

Feel invigorated by your awareness that tomorrow is another day and another opportunity to get closer to who you long to be.

And, if by chance you need help in the inspiration department, just consult those love nuggets known as your offspring, as they have a knack for always delivering.

Discouragement is for the birds, guys, so let it fly the *%#* away.