As Jennifer Boykin, who helps women recapture their Mid-Life Mojo said, "I'm a recovering perfectionist." Have you ever met anyone you can stand who thought they were perfect? Their were probably a little insufferable. You've heard it said a million times that no one is perfect, but still many of us strive to reach some imagined level of perfection and think other people are more perfect than we are because to us they seem to know exactly who they are, what they want and have none of the messy uncertainties, self-doubts, and anxieties we have mucking up our brains. How each of us defines the perfection we may be striving for has a lot to do with expectations for getting life right that we learned growing up in our environment and our communities. For example, maybe your family thinks you should follow in their path and get it into their line of work like take over a business. But maybe you want to move to the big city and become a videographer, graphic designer. Remember this, only you can define what your right life is and that's based on your definition of success and no one else's. It's hard for some of us to battle the forces in our lives that don't support our dreams. But life is long and it's a whole lot better when you're living a life of your choosing, even if you may not know what it is sometimes. My philosophy for life has always been it seemed like a good idea to me at the time because my definition of what success was for me change quite often and it still does and that's okay, go for it. Getting to the point where you're living by your own rules and rejecting a life that isn't a good fit for you can take time and courage, but fighting for your individuality and dreams and living a fulfilling life are worth it. The reason I'm telling you all this is again, you have to fully and confidently be yourself and feel comfortable with who you are if you hope to dig out the creative ideas that are smooth under other people's suffocating expectations of view. I read a wonderful code by Wavy Gravy, who is known for having been the master of ceremonies at the Woodstock festival. The quote was in my good friend and author Elizabeth Lesser's cathartic book, Broken Open, which is an inspiring guide to healing and growth. Wavy says, "We're all bosses on the bus so we might as well sit back and enjoy the ride." We're all wonderfully beautifully imperfect. Imperfect is defined as faulty or incomplete, and I'm pleased to say I'm faulty and incomplete. Even imperfect though is a destructive word because it suggests that, that how we are is somehow wrong, bad, and not okay. I'll amend that to say, we're all just wonderful and beautiful. We have a lot of learning and growing to come. We're all works in progress till the day we die. Accepting new or a work in progress gives you permission to shape and mold yourself in new ways as you move through life and learn more about yourself. Instead of trying to attain some imagined higher order of perfect human try instead to just enjoy your journey as you move forward in life and try to embrace that sometimes these growth moments are not going to be feel-good experiences. I'll share with you one of my not so great moments. You may have heard the saying, surrender to being a beginner, where you embrace what you don't know and tackle something you think you're going to stink at, like maybe skiing or public speaking. Well, I once made the proverbial full of myself when I was doing some consulting and giving a talk to a large group, the problem was, I wasn't willing at the time to surrender to being a beginner. I had done a quick study of a certain complicated subject, GIS mapping that the government agency, the CIA wanted me to teach them about during a workshop, something I knew little about. Midway through the talk, I noticed about 30 plus people were sitting at their tables with their arms crossed with glaring expressions on their face. Finally, one of them raised their hand and I said, "Yes, a question." The person said, "Everything you've said is wrong." I just stood there and feeling embarrassed and humiliated, so I stopped talking, my mouth went dry, my right leg trembled a bit. To say I felt foolish, doesn't even begin to define what I was feeling. What do you say at a moment like that? I told them the truth, that they were right, that I had done a quick study on this and hadn't realized how deeply they wanted to go into it. Why don't we stop this? I said take a break. We'll work on something I do know about afterward. It turned out there were eight PhDs in that room. About two-thirds of them returned after the break, which I thought was amazing. On the way home, I was filled with self-loathing and so angry at myself. I was also embarrassed. I felt shame and my confidence took a big hit. I mean, my partner in this venture was just sitting there with his hand like this, his face in his hands, shaking his head. When I was deep into the consulting world, I'd always had difficulty admitting I didn't know something because I'd always been successful faking it after doing a quick study on the topic. But after that incident, I was converted to truths. I have become very comfortable saying, "I don't know anything about that." It's very freeing to say this and it's a whole lot safer because I no longer allow my insecurities and fears or bravado in an area to cause me to do something that might make me feel that horrible shame. I'm working to notice when I strive to achieve some fantasy of perfection I have in my head in all areas of my life. The trick is noticing when I was striving for something and then doing the work to stop it so I can avoid the negative feelings I get when I don't achieve it, like stamping out pain fires. Accepting who we are truthfully, and forgiving ourselves for the times we stumble and beat up on ourselves will help shape us into the best genuine, beautiful selves we were intended to be, whats and all.
