Three days ago, my Starbucks cup said something simple:

“Be you.”

Not my name spelled wrong.
Not a long random phrase.

Just be you.

At the time, I smiled and moved on.

But today, while out on a walk clearing my head, it hit me:
I’ve spent most of my life carrying a label that never actually belonged to me.

For as long as I can remember, I’ve been called a Type A overachiever.

I was surrounded by them.

The girls with the straight A’s and advanced classes.
The presidents of clubs.
The organized ones.
The polished ones.
The girls with the cute outfits, the perfect study guides, the homework done first, the plans made, the parties hosted, the systems built.

My friend groups were full of them growing up, and honestly, many of my closest friends still embody that energy today.

And for years, because I also achieved, I just assumed that label fit me too.

But the truth?

It doesn’t.

Becoming a mom forced me to confront this quickly.

I realized almost immediately:
I am not a Type A mother.

And once I saw that, I realized I’m not Type A at work or in life either.

An overachiever?
Absolutely.

Type A?
Not even close.

Type A often gets defined as:

That’s just not me.

And recognizing that has actually brought me so much peace. Trying to fit into that, maintain that, be that. It steals my peace, my joy, my me.

For a while, I’ve been feeling disconnected from some of the women around me.
Not because they aren’t my people, they absolutely are my friends, and I’m proud and blessed to have them in my life.

But I’ve been confusing shared achievement with shared wiring.

They get results through structure, routine, optimization, and control.

I get results through something different.

I still get a lot done.
I care deeply about outcomes.
I want meaningful impact.
I set goals and reach them.

But I do it with:

That’s me.

That’s how I mother.
That’s how I lead.
That’s how I build.
That’s how I move through life.

And honestly?

When I realized that, I realized

I love that about myself. I felt instant joy and peace realizing this.

Yes, I always got good grades.

But I was an A/B student with a sprinkle of C’s here and there.

I was vice president of my senior class, not president.

I’ve led major initiatives at work, but I’ve never needed to pretend I knew everything.
In fact, one of my greatest strengths is knowing when to lean on people smarter than me in certain areas.

I use my resources.
I use my network.
I fill the gaps.
I move fast with what I know and trust myself to figure out the rest.

That’s not weakness.

That’s wisdom.

I got my yoga teacher training certification, but no, I didn’t retain every single detail from the final exam nor have I gone to teach weekly yoga classes at a studio (maybe one day).

I took what served me in that season and used it to reach the goal.

I ran a half marathon without ever truly being “a runner.”
Did I finish at the same pace as my runner friends?

No.

Did I still finish ahead of hundreds of people?

Yes.

That’s the thing:
I may not always do it the most polished way, but I get it done.

This realization may be clearest in how I mother.

I’m a mom, a single mom, that right there should show you I’m not Type A (lol)

I’ll be fully transparent, I never want to be a Type A mom nor is there time or space for me to be that as a single parent. Any single parent knows, you have to embodied a hell of a lot of grace and grit to parent solo and being Type B is the best way to do that, maybe the only way if we’re being honest.

My son has screen time sometimes.
He ate cake before his first birthday.
We still co-sleep.
He still nurses at 22 months old.
He doesn’t like milk besides breast milk.

His current daycare…it has lets say, a lot of character.

And I have not spent one second spiraling over any of it (while others might)

He’s a kid.
He’ll figure it out.
I’ll keep offering what’s available, trust his development, and move forward.

I don’t try to control every tantrum.
Some of them are simply developmental.
He’s human.
He needs to let it out.
Then we carry on.

That’s grace.

Some of my mom friends thrive with strict routines, tracked naps, measured food intake, learning milestones, solving for every “hard” part of parenting and solutionizing for the changes while also maintaining pristine homes.

And I genuinely admire that.

Me?

I need a clean kitchen.
I always will.

But if there are shoes by the door, toys in the living room, and a few things out of place, I can still function just fine.

If his naps is 40min in the car instead of 2min in his crib. So be it.

Sleep regressions, change in routine, cool. Happens, we’ll both survive and I pray its part of what builds grit and grace in my son.

The kind of grace and grit that I now realized has carried me through so many seasons and is the reason I made it to the top of my mountains after walking deep valleys.

Perfection isn’t what makes me effective. It’s also not going to be what makes my son effective, no matter what modern parenting culture tries to tell us.

What makes me effective is grit.

The grit to get it done without perfectionism slowing me down.
The grit to trust myself in the unknown.
The grit to say yes before I know every answer.
The grit to figure it out in motion.
The grit to give myself grace while doing it.

I don’t need to know it all.
I don’t want to know it all.
That level of control actually keeps me stuck.

What moves me forward is adaptability.

What grounds me is grace.

What fuels me is trust. Trust it will all workout.

All the way back to my ballet days. I danced from the age of 3 years old, took some time off in high school then tacked on a dance minor in college.

Like any dancer, I wanted my leg the highest in the room.
Sometimes it wasn’t.

But my foot?

My foot was always the most pointed in the room by a landslide at all ages.

What nobody knew was that half the time, I was so focused on getting my leg higher and building that strength that I gave myself grace in the footwork - because even without obsessing over it, it was still naturally excellent (God given genetics in the arch department, runs in the fam).

And that’s exactly who I am. Type-B overacheiver.

A type-A dancer, they’ll tell you never in a million years would they have let their foot be less pointed to get their leg higher. They would’ve had to achieve both. Have it all. The highest leg and the foot pointed as hard as they could.

I may not always look like the highest achiever in the traditional sense.

But there is always something deeply me in how I show up:
grit where it matters,
grace where it doesn’t,
and trust in my ability to figure it out.

That’s not Type A.

That’s Type B excellence.

And for the first time, that label actually feels like home.

I mean I am the middle child after all…

-With Grace & Grit,
Kenzie