The Skinny – Amy Brunell

Of Course You Doubt Yourself-You’re Trying to be Perfect! Trying to “be perfect” is a no win proposition. Stop please. Among the many problems of trying to be and do all perfectly is that you are inherently imperfect. Being imperfect is actually part of your entitled humanity. Entitled humanity? What does that mean? It means that you were created with certain flaws on purpose. And your life is to learn lessons because of these flaws, not in spite of them. Should you strive for being better? Yes. All of us should strive to be the best we can be. But on certain days, that may only be 30 percent. On some days, 30 percent is the best you can be.

In our attempts to be perfect, we will inevitably make a mistake. Because we make a mistake we are either criticized or we are critical. Then we self-loathe which in turn leads to self-doubt, which in our warped thinking makes us believe that we have to strive to be perfect and the whole thing starts again. The only guaranteed state of this circle I have described, is that making mistakes is inevitable. That is your guarantee. Every other thought, is a choice. Making mistakes isn’t a choice. As much as you try and fight against the idea of making mistakes, you were made to make mistakes.

When you don’t accept this inevitability, your life is hard. Very hard. I know this to be true.

“Be Perfect” people are disconnected from others because we don’t want others to know we’re not perfect. We’re actually cut off from making relationships and we often stay hidden so no one will find out about our flaws.

“Be Perfect” states also distracts us from our pain. We misunderstand the concept as a “how to” on how to work on ourselves. So we work harder on being perfect instead of feeling our feelings.

If making mistakes is inevitable, then how do accept our mistakes? How do make a mistake and move forward? We can work on our responses. We can choose to catch ourselves in our critical thinking and decide to be compassionate for our suffering. It’s really hard sometimes making mistakes, and when we feel that pain, we are suffering.

We can learn from experience that most mistakes will pass and probably won’t sting so much tomorrow. We can forgive ourselves. We can choose to let go.