On Pride

Don’t let your pride keep you from doing what will make you proud. 
I posted asking for help today in my Facebook group for camp parents, leaning into vulnerability. 
I happened to look at my summer camp enrollment for the first time in months and was shocked by how many camps I still needed to fill. 
I have been so busy this spring focused on doing something that I am proud of, providing free private and group workshops for tweens/teens on mental health and mindfulness, that I dropped the ball big time on advertising my camps. 
Ironically, I had justified the time spent on these free events thinking I had a full summer of camps ahead of me. 
And here I was looking at the lowest enrollment numbers I had ever seen. 
I am proud of the free work I have done, and have zero regrets, but I realized that if I want to continue to do that work, I couldn’t let pride get in my way. 
Pride was shouting at me that if anyone knew that my camps weren’t all full, I would look like a failure, like an imposter, a fake. 
Pride was whispering that if I reached out and asked parents for help in spreading the word, they would question having signed up their kid in the first place. 
Pride started to weave a story with the one goal of me keeping my mouth shut. 
Except it didn’t work. 
Because that pride was backed by ego. 
And I know that to be proud of myself, I need to lean on confidence, which means being willing to fail. 
I first went to work looking at how I needed to change the camps to make them better and did so. I then reached out to the families in the group and explained what I needed. 
Nothing may change. And parents may think my post looks weak. And that’s okay. 
I didn’t let pride keep me from asking for help- and being proud. 
Pride is tricky, there’s a reason it’s considered a deadly sin. Listen for when it tells its story and remember it is your choice to believe it. 
And remember- we can’t expect others to ask for help unless we are willing to lead the way.  
Also- vulnerability is taking a photo after being outside working all day in 93 degree heat and sweating so much that sweat poured out of my gloves after staining the final deck. But man oh man- its looking good out here guys! I can’t wait to see you all!

Follow For Daily Posts and Baby Goat Videos!

About Becky

Becky Schmooke (pronounced “Smoke”) is a Mindful Leadership Consultant and Speaker, focused on providing action based mindfulness and leadership training to organizations and businesses who are ready to do things differently.

Becky’s Mindful Kitchen, is located outside of Iowa City, and provides truly unique team building and leadership retreats, strategic planning workshops, private parties and classes and weekly summer camps for kids. The commercial teaching kitchen, treehouse, archery range, bush craft skills, first aid training, wood fired pizza oven, chickens, baby goats and timber adventure playground provides endless opportunities for hands on activities.

As a mom to three girls, 60 chickens, 4 goats, 2 dogs and a fire fighter’s wife- life is never boring and provides Becky with endless stories which she uses to illustrate her approach to mindfulness in daily posts on social media.

In all that she does, Becky has one goal, to build confidence in others to take action to live their best life, not just pass time.

Follow For Daily Posts and Baby Goat Videos!

About Becky

In all that she does, Becky has one goal, to build confidence in others to take action to live their best life, not just pass time.