“Life’s all about moments of impact and how they change our lives forever” – The Vow

 

Sometimes you fall short. Sometimes you give your all and your all just isn’t good enough. As a millennial, I’ve been showered with the idea that “I can do whatever I put my mind to”. “Nothing is impossible if I try my hardest and give it my all”. Sorry Mom, that’s just not the case.

 

I’m the type of person who concentrates on the result, not the path to get there. My specialty is finding alternate paths to the same result. I once had an executive of a Fortune 50 company call me “scrappy” when describing my work ethic. I’m the person you call in when you need something done and you don’t care how the outcome is achieved. All of this is because I refuse to believe I can’t.

 

I have a few select memories that I deem “defining moments”. These memories span from my childhood as early as 3 years old to the present. I view these moments that are etched in my memory as the key ingredients to the recipe of who I am.  No matter how insignificant they may seem to the onlooker, these frozen moments in time built me. Many of these moments built me up and many of them tore me down, but in the end they’re all an integral part of the person I am today. 

 

I encountered another “defining moment” this past week. I won’t go into detail about the incident, but I will say that it is and will always be frozen in my mind. It tore me down. It smacked me in the face with the reality that sometimes your best just isn’t good enough. Sometimes you can give your all and still fail. Sometimes the perfect outcome is not an option. Sometimes you have to understand that you can’t.

 

So what do we do with these defining moments? What do we do when we finally learn that sometimes your best isn’t good enough? We grow. We move forward. We try again.