Allow Yourself To Be Imperfect… Even If You’re A Perfectionist

One of the most painful, disturbing problems in life is perfectionism.
Some people are perfectionists only at work, not in other areas of life. Still it kills positive energy and decreases efficiency. It’s exhausting and it affects mood and health.


This is a tough one because perfectionists don’t like to hear any answer that don’t paint them as perfect.

Let me speak for myself and a lot of my students, and then you see if you might fit this. A lot of my students and I got our perfectionism from a place of either over-criticism when we were young or an over-reliance on approval from others.

If you take a look at those two things that occurred when you were young, you can ask, “Did my parents, teachers, elders, brothers, sisters or whoever I respected criticize me so severely, once or often, that it still pains me to this day?”

If so, then there’s a fear that when you do something wrong something bad will happen. It’s a good reason to not want to do things wrong.

You’ve got to take a look and see where this comes from. For example, was everything cool in your life except for at school where your teacher was really harsh and you were really criticized? If you didn’t get the approval, were you ostracized at school and the kids didn’t like you?

Very often what people don’t realize is that your work life is a direct reflection today as an adult as your school life was when you were a kid, so I would look to that arena and see if there’s anything there. That will give you the why.

Once you know why you’ve got this perfectionism going on, then you have to ask, “Is it worth it and does it help me?”

There are some really positive elements about being a perfectionist, and there are really negative ones. What can possibly be good about being a perfectionist?

The obvious one is that usually perfectionists attempt to do things with excellence. The result is generally pretty decent, or at least you’re going to have pretty high quality when you’re dealing with a perfectionist versus someone who doesn’t give a sh*t, yes?


You should take that, enjoy it, embrace it and say, “That’s a great thing that I have this perfectionism. It gives me an opportunity to want to be excellent, and that is a very great trait.”

On the negative side, it hurts energy. It makes you feel like it can never be right or good enough, you never achieve enough and you’re never good enough. Because you’re never good enough and you don’t feel good about whatever you do you start to not want to take on new things, because you know you’re just going to get that bad feeling back again.

Here’s what you can do about this:

1. Locate where your perfection/imperfection comes from and accept it without judgment. 21st century Buddha says, “Sh*t happens.” Getting over it is a process, but knowledge is empowerment.
2. It’s a conditioned process. You can un-condition it.

You can say, “Thank you for sharing,” get yourself back into the game and acknowledge it, “I’m going to start fresh today. Today I’m perfect in the universe.”
This is literally true, by the way. On a spiritual level you’re perfect the way you are, with all of your flaws, good things and bad things.

If you see something is not perfect, allow yourself to play. Allow yourself to be imperfect and messy, and allow yourself to screw up once in a while. See that you’re not going to die.
Here’s one of the homework assignments we give for people in some of the courses for perfectionists: dress with your clothes backward. I want you to have your shirt half in and half out. I want your underwear to be showing, and I want your hair to be all messed up.


Allow yourself to be imperfect. Allow yourself to love yourself no matter how you are.

Love yourself unconditionally no matter what. That is the answer.

What do you think? Do you have any experiences you can share about perfectionism? We want to hear from you!

Why You May Be Sabotaging Yourself From Finding Your True Path In Life

When we talk about right directions, the biggest issue that people have is not being able to make a decision on what direction they think they should take for fear of making the wrong choice. When we are fearful of making a mistake, then it’s got to be the “right” direction.
 
I want everyone to write down these words: “What is it?”

Everyone wants to know, “What’s the right thing for me?”

That’s a bad question. Why? Because it puts way too much pressure on you.
I don’t blame you for being afraid to make that kind of choice, because what if it’s the wrong one?

It’s like a forever question: what if you get stuck with that choice forever?

Go back to that question “What is it? ” and cross out the word “it.” I want you to replace that with the word “next.”

What is next? What’s the next thing you want to try or do?
What just happened is you gave yourself some breathing room. You let yourself off the hook. You took the massive stress out of the question.

What is next could be a day, a month, a year, three years, or whatever.
You’re not necessarily going to find the perfect direction, but as I say in my Life Directions course “The idea is to try on different coats”.

We have this imagination that says, “Here’s what my perfect dream life looks and feels like. If I was just a writer, and I wrote books all day long, or if I was on stage teaching all day long, I would be a happy camper.”

And here’s where we get stuck. We have this image of the perfect situation for us. We’re not in that perfect situation, and we’re not living that perfect lifestyle or direction, but we say, “This will be it.”
Here’s what happens: You do “it,” and pretty soon you’re saying, “This isn’t it. There’s something missing.

What is it? Do I need to make a revision to where I’m at now or do I need to change to something completely new? I’m so disappointed that this wasn’t it. I still don’t feel great.”
Now we’ve got a big problem, don’t we?

If your issue is career, then I would ask, “What is next?” In other words, what would you love to try, especially if you weren’t afraid of the money thing?

Whatever the answer to that is, you may think, “I don’t know if I can make a lot of money at that.”
Here’s my contention. I’ll go back to the original teachings and principles that I think I’m fairly well-known for, which is solving people’s’ problems.

If you help people in a way that they need or want to be helped, and it’s in the area that you love to help people in, you’re going to love what you do, and you’re going to make a lot of money, assuming you learn the business elements we teach in our Million Dollar Business Secrets course.
You need to have a little bit of skill, but the most important thing is: are you helping people? Are you really helping them solve their problem?

Also, do you love helping people in that area? Is that something that sings to you? We all love to help, but we all love to help in certain ways more than others.

This is for those people who are having challenges with choosing their direction:

1. A lot of this is about fear. Instead of putting pressure on yourself to choose “correctly,” choose what’s exciting for you to imagine how you would help a lot of people in a way that’s fun for you, and that you’re good at.

2. Get a private coach. Let them help you for at least a few months. Whatever your goal, it’s much harder to accomplish without someone who can mentor you through that process. Learning the skills from someone with proven experience makes a huge difference.

The problem with most people is that they are so busy being fearful of choosing the wrong thing that they lose focus on what’s exciting for them to pursue versus what’s correct.

What’s a path that sounds awesome for you to pursue? Do you believe you’d never make the kind of money you’d like to make pursuing that path? Is that absolutely true?
If so, is there another way you can stay in the field you want but apply your skills and talents in a different way?


Bouncing ideas within the community could be a valuable way to help brainstorm the path that’s true for you. Leave your feedback in the comments below, I would love to hear from you!


Henk