I know, I know. It’s a purposefully salacious title. But it’s true. If you want to get $hit done, you need to be willing to get messy.
French onion soup is one of the better things in life. Particularly the french onion soup from one of my favorite restaurants - Le Petit Trois. It’s so sinfully luscious that it’s worth the $22. But it’s also really, really messy.
One spoonful produces strings and strings of cheese, the broth often spills out over the side while you’re trying to puncture through the top of the dish, and your hands get greasy picking the crusted cheese off the bowl (you know you do it, too.)
This French onion soup is the perfect metaphor for productivity. You’ve gotta get in and get your hands dirty to get things done.
Recently, my life has become very complicated. This is all for great reasons - business is booming, it’s the busy season for dance competitions, and (safe) social engagements abound. If I wanted a polite, sanitary calendar, there’s no way I would have said yes to a lot of the exciting opportunities I’m currently pursuing.
Why? Well, there are babysitters, transfer car seat installation rendezvous. location setups, finding time to repack suitcases, cutting production timelines in half, letting go of perfection on all of my work, embracing the fact that there will always be one client I forgot to email and one load of laundry I won’t have time to fold.
Y’all?
THAT IS WHY LIFE IS EXCITING.
I’ll say it once and I’ll say it until I kick the bucket - PERFECT IS BORING.
Mess the crap out of your life. If your heart says yes to an opportunity, SAY YES! Figure it out. Call out sick, pull an all-nighter, engage your community, and take the ever loving bull by the mother f*cking horns.
My life is a mess. I have weekends with less than 18 hours in one city and then a different city. I have deadlines for fully-produced promotional content that were, like, yesterday. And yes, I stayed up until 10 pm doing some serious teamwork parent $hit making a three-year-old’s class Valentine’s day cards.
The point is, if you choose to make your life exciting, it’s inevitably going to be messy. I didn’t get to sleep in time to get my requisite 7 hours last night. Guess what? I’ll live.
Here’s my take on living an extravagantly messy life: 80/20.
Yeah, that Pareto thing. In this situation, though, it’s freeing. If you allow 20% of your life to be messy as heck, the other 80% can take care of that messiness.
There will be times where I won’t have as much to do. It’s during that time that I will reflect, clean up the messes my exciting life has created, plan for the future, and rest. Right now, though? I’m riding the big old messy wave of fantasticness.
The moral of this story:
It’s all about perspective. Messy can be disgusting and stressful. But, if you simply shift your perspective, messy is as delectable as Le Petit Trois’ French onion soup. When you order it, you should know what you’re getting into. Like anything in life, if you’re brave enough to wisely step into the chaos, you will emerge invigorated and one step closer to your best self.
I will be doing some really fun things on Substack in a few months. If you know anyone who might enjoy my particular flavor of sarcastic optimism, please share (either on your social media or via email).
Eat the $hit out of that life soup, my friends. Have a productive week.
Love,
Michelle
Messy is perfect. Love this advice.
What an excellent and delicious metaphor. Let the messy games begin!