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Writer's pictureCoach Drea

Let Go of "Perfect" and Enjoy the Ride

I believe that in order to live an absolutely ridiculous life! I need to enjoy every moment. Moments of amazing times and moments of being a dork and falling on my face. If we can’t laugh at our own imperfections, what can we laugh about, right? Perfection isn’t the goal. Perfection Isn’t the Goal

At the top of the year, I decided to read through the Bible in one year with Nicky Gumbel. At this moment we are about 198 days into 2020. I would love to report that I am exactly 198 days into my app but I am not. I have taken a day off or two and here and there. I could quit and give up but that simply doesn’t work for me. That is the danger of an all-or-nothing attitude. It simply doesn’t work.

Do you know that it took Thomas Edison over a thousand tries to invent the light bulb? What if he had just quit after his 988th attempt? We’d all be sitting in the dark! Steven Spielberg was rejected from USC twice. If he’d quit after that second rejection, we wouldn’t have the movies Jaws or ET or Schindler’s List! What a shame that would be!

Embrace Your Imperfections

Here’s a question for you: if you’re running a 5K and your shoe comes untied, do you quit the race?

Take a step back and look at your life and goals in the context of that ridiculous question. Sure, you may not run the perfect race that day, but so what? You’re not perfect! And it’s OK! When your shoelace comes untied, you adjust. You kneel down and tie your shoe and then you keep going until you cross the finish line.

“Imperfection is beauty, madness is genius and it’s better to be absolutely ridiculous than absolutely boring.” -Marilyn Monroe

When we embrace our imperfections we go into the process knowing that we may stumble. That way, when we do make a mistake, we don’t feel the shame that leads us to want to quit. Why? Because we knew stumbles were to be expected along the path to the goal.

3 Things Happen When You Release Yourself From Perfection

First, you become less obsessed and when you become less obsessed, you can more easily achieve your goals.

Next, you start making better choices. Let’s say you’re trying to eat healthier. For most of us, restrictive diets are impossible. We inevitably eat something that’s not on the plan, feel like a failure, and quit the whole thing. Admit it – you’ve done that! Then we don’t start dieting again until we have another wedding coming up or a trip to the beach. For some people, it may even take a major health scare to force change.

If you can release yourself from the need to be perfect, then you begin to realize that a cookie is just a cookie. Eating it doesn’t make you bad or mean that you deserve a life sentence of shame. Embrace your imperfections and make it right with the very next bite.

Lastly, you’ll free yourself up to get to an even higher standard and level of success. Instead of beating yourself up all the time because you’re not perfect, you will celebrate your small wins along the way.

Stop Setting Yourself Up for Failure

We’re not perfect! So why do we keep setting ourselves up for failure by trying to be? I am on vacation this week and I have had dessert a few times this week. Obviously I don’t want to do that on a weekly basis but did that make me a bad person? No, it made me human!

Imagine a life when you can lay your head on the pillow every night and reflect back on the day feeling positive about your accomplishments instead of defeated because you didn’t do everything perfectly? I get great joy knowing I had a B+ score at the end of the day for whatever behaviors and accomplishments I’m tracking.

My goal is no longer an A because that requires a mentality that would make me so uptight that nobody would want to deal with me. Trust me, I’ve been that A-Type Personality in the past. It’s never pretty, even on YOU!

If you struggle in this area or have a goal to like I do but need a bit of help to get started, join us for our two-day course on How to End Self Sabotage coming up July 27th! This two-day event will help you learn:

  • what self-sabotage is all about

  • how to identify when and why you are self-sabotaging

  • how to act like a buffalo when fear strikes

  • why accepting your imperfections will set you free

  • ways to reframe the beliefs that fuel self-sabotage

This course is a virtual event that is interactive and will provide you with the tools need to end the cycle of self-sabotage and finally reach the goals you have set for yourself!

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