First things first:

Harry Potter is not my cup of tea.

But Lauren is a mega-fan.

Last November and December I was gently encouraged to participate in an eight part Potter movie marathon. And when that was almost done and I thought I was through the worst of it, we followed that up with the three Fantastic Beasts movies.

While I wouldn’t wish such a wizarding world endurance test on my worst enemy, one good thing did come from that Potter-thon:

Daily email inspiration!  

(even 12 months later I’m still seeing house-elves in my nightmares)

Take Hermione for instance.

She’s the model overachiever.  And I don’t mean that in a good way.

In one of the movies (not sure which), Hermione decides to sign up for a cauldron-load of extra classes and uses a magical Time-Turner device to travel back in time to attend them all. 

Very sneaky, Miss Granger.

But her sneaky ways eventually take their toll.  Hermione starts to stress herself out and in one scene she storms out of a Divination class in a fit of overwork and fatigue.

In another movie (could be the same movie – it’s all a blur), Hermione gets it into her head to knit hats for the Hogwarts house-elves. 

A touching gesture. 

But when she gets zero support from her wizarding chums, Hermione finds herself swamped and more & more annoyed at how slow it’s going and by how little anyone else seems to care.

And in another movie, Hermione partially turns herself into a cat when she buggers up her Polyjuice Potion and berates herself for her mistake – even though she’s still lightyears ahead of her classmates.

When you put this all together, it’s clear Hermione sets herself high standards.

Nothing wrong with that of course.

And yet…

I wonder if Hermione ever lets herself off the hook?

I wonder if she thinks that perfect is absolute?

And I wonder if Hermione knows she’s already enough – regardless of her grades, her potions and how many hats she knits.

If Hogwarts ever decides to hire a resident coach for overachieving wizards, these are the sorts of questions I’d explore with Hermione.

And if you can see a bit of yourself in Hermione, these questions might be worth a ponder too.

On a related note:

Do you feel like nothing you do is quite good enough?  Does your health or peace of mind suffer because of the pressure you put yourself under?  Or do you feel like you’ve got so much to accomplish that you’ve got no time to relax?

If so, hit reply.

I have an offer for you that you might like.