It’s that time of year.

Christmas is past, the ball has dropped, and now we’re all taking our enthusiastic, wobbly first steps into our New Year’s resolutions. We want to exercise more, eat healthier, be more adventurous, bury the hatchet, try that new sushi place down the street, jump out of a plane. Okay, maybe not jump out of a plane.

My list is lengthy. Some resolutions are fresh, some are repeat offenders. One of those repeat offenders is writing this blog. A few nudges from friends and past readers coupled with this quote I stumbled over made me acknowledge, that yes, writing is still on my mind and it’s not that big of a risk anyway. After a lot of starting and stopping over the past twelve years, it’s okay to start again.

One of the reasons I got hooked on yoga three years ago was the idea that doing yoga isn’t something we accomplish; it’s something we practice. When falling flat on your butt in the middle of a crowded room of lithe, beautiful bodies, this was a particularly comforting thought. Everyone agrees here that we’re all just practicing, and falling is definitely part of practicing. This idea gave me the courage to come back to the mat and to the class of lithe, beautiful bodies again and again.

I realized that this idea of practicing could be applied to many other challenges in my life, especially to writing. I’m practicing. It’s okay to fail or trip or fall off the wagon. The important part is to keep practicing.

We’re all just practicing in so many ways: parenting, directing communications, being a good friend, wife-ing. We try, we fail, we try again.

Perhaps what appeals to me the most about the idea of practicing is that it insists that perfection is not the goal. As a recovering perfectionist, realizing this was, well, a revelation.

Perfectionism is not the goal; practice is the goal.

Practice is something I can do. I can show up. I can try. I can make it a part of my everyday life. I can do that. And I can forgive myself when I don’t, because that’s part of practicing.

Friends, practicing is extending grace to ourselves. It’s about pursuing something we love and forgiving ourselves when we fall down. I can do that. And you can, too.

Whatever you’re facing this new year, whatever your resolution, I hope you face it as a practice. I hope you know that it’s okay to fall on your face in front of all the lithe, beautiful people in the great yoga class of the world. The important part is to extend grace and keep practicing. It’s more about all the days you showed up then about the one day you hit the right number on the scale or hold the galley of your first book or visit the place you finally saved up enough money to visit.

Practicing is so much better than perfection, because it is real. It’s where our lives are enriched. It’s where we learn. And it’s where our hopes become a living, breathing part of our everyday lives.

Happy New Year!

I hope that writing here on 31 Feet a few times a week or month becomes a practice for me. As I’ve been thinking about starting again the past two months, I’ve thought about what I’d like to write about here. I’d like to write what I’m practicing in my relationship with God, my husband, my children, my friends, and as a resident of this life. I hope it makes me more thoughtful. I hope it helps me sift through the overwhelming amount of choices and information I face every day to get down to the sometimes rough, but always beautiful simple truths of God and this life. I hope it makes me see clearer, with the eyes of faith, as I originally set out to do on this blog.