Another Achiever is Going Rogue! I first heard Erin Loechner, the author of Chasing Slow and founder of Design for Mankind, when I listened to The Simple Show podcast. Ohmygoodness! Erin is amazing: her writing and design work has been showcased in The New York Times, Lucky, Parenting, Dwell, Marie Claire, Elle Decor, Huffington Post, a two-season HGTV.com web special, garnering over one million fans worldwide, and now jillemccormick.com! She’s spoken for and appeared in renowned international events for clients such as Walt Disney World, IKEA, Martha Stewart and Home Depot.
Erin, her husband, and two kids live in the Midwest now and strive for less in most areas except three: joy, grace, and goat cheese.
How did you move away from performing for your worth and toward
receiving grace?
Oh, this is forever a work in progress. We’re so conditioned to think we must earn our worth (it is still unfathomable to me that I needn’t), so I am continually fighting to receive grace day after day after day. One of the beautiful things I’m practicing is to ask forgiveness more often – both in prayer and in relationship – and I’ve found that coming face to face with my failures is a surefire way to get the tiniest glimpse of just how hopelessly wrecked we are, and yet at the same time, hopelessly loved. It’s grace in action, and once received, it’s hard to think we’re even remotely capable of earning our worth without it.
What would you say to encourage the woman who isolates herself from feeling her hurt and pain by being busy, by looking for outside recognition, by always trying harder?
I’m hesitant to offer advice here, because I’m a firm believer that the greatest lessons are the ones hard-earned. The fire arrives before the refining begins, you know? But I would say, simply, there is another way, and I trust she’ll find it. I trust she already knows this, but that it takes time, practice and great faith to believe it. I would say I have been her, and I am her, and yet, there is so much hope for us both.