Your journey counts

When I walked the Camino last year, my expectation was I would walk every single one of the 550 miles.

In reality (thanks to foot pain), I walked 350 miles. When I've told people about this, I've said "I only walked 350," like it's some sort of failure or disappointment.

*voice drops to a whisper* 

Or like my Camino didn't count. 

That statement is ridiculous, and, also, still lands a little hard in my gut. It brings to mind this glorious piece of wisdom: We judge ourselves by our intentions and we judge others by their actions.

Have you ever done this? Had a goal or outcome in mind and fallen short of it, which then made you blind to the cool thing you actually accomplished? Feels pretty easy to do sometimes, doesn't it?

I just read "A Walk In The Park" about two men who walked the entire length of the Grand Canyon. It's a gorgeous stunner of a book and I insist you read it. After spending a year walking several hundred hard miles, the author realizes that his journey is no more worthy than anyone else's.

Of the Park's day visitors, he says:  

They were pilgrims, each and every one of them, and what made them so was neither the difficulty of the path they had chosen nor the distance they intended to travel. They were pilgrims because they had come ..... in the hope of standing in the presence of something greater than themselves, something that would enable them to feel profoundly diminished and radically expanded in the same breath.

Everyone's journey counts: yours, mine. Everyone's. 

Your turn: take a look at a recent "failure" you experienced. Can you offer yourself a reframe and focus on what you accomplished vs. what you expected to accomplish. We all deserve to give ourselves this grace.