This may be a different kind of thread, but I wanted to start one where I could celebrate accomplishments and maybe vent a little when I'm struggling.

About a month ago, Chisum and I started a scent tracking class. He really enjoys it, and so do I, which is great! But I can be really critical of myself and when we have a rough go or too many errors it's hard not to get down. He can't do in-person classes, so we are doing them all online which is a really great alternative but also means I have to figure out the material largely on my own (with the help of a TA) and I also get to be my own first, and worst, critic. Hopefully this thread can help me a little by chronicling growth and just giving myself an extra space to process my own perfectionism.

I have a list of goals and intentions for 2024, and two of them are "progress, not perfection" and "trust the process". Both apply to my general life, but will certainly come in handy here!

He had been doing pretty well, but we got some snow and had to wait a little over a week for it to melt. It's melted now and we did tracks both yesterday and today. Today's was better than yesterday, but it was still a bit sloppy and I'm not thrilled about uploading either video for the TA to evaluate. We will try again tomorrow (tomorrow's another day, right?) and I'm going to make myself pick one of those three videos to upload for critique, even if they aren't up to my "standards".