One of the most difficult things we humans learn to do is accept our imperfections. Most of you will try to change what you see as flaws if you find them bothersome. You will find flaws in your looks, buck teeth can be fixed, a missing limb is harder to disguise.
Flaws in your behavior can be simple to change but may depend more on how it impacts others. Flaws in your character are tougher to change, and you must want to change and be willing to do the work.
If you want to be content and happy in life, you must find a way to live amicably with your imperfections.
Step away from the competition
If you have any contact with social media, you will have noticed how everyone is striving to be perfect. Suddenly, you can’t post a selfie without at least one filter or go out for dinner without showing your curated plate of food. Even your dog is dressed to look perfect.
Don’t you want to be who you are? Liked for the way you are? After all, other people’s picture perfection isn’t any more genuine than yours is.
Think of it, What would happen if you just decided to take a step away from all the competition, all that clamoring for likes and hearts? What if you chose simply to enjoy your life, warts and all, without sharing it with the world?
Here’s how you can reclaim your life and be happier.
Be mindful of your thoughts
If a negative viewpoint has become your default setting, you probably don’t even realize it when you’re doing it. Before you know it, you perpetually set your inner monologue to negativity. You feel discontented and irritable with everyone and everything. Your thoughts become your life. And that’s no way to live your best life!
Consciously change your inner monologue to focus on the positives. Instead of focusing on differences and seeing them as flaws, choose to see what is good in the other person. If your go-to is to criticize their weight or hair, or the way they speak, change your view of them by finding something to admire.
Take a moment to listen to your self-talk for a moment. Consider the words you’re using and course-correct for more positive language.
Don’t judge harshly
You can choose immediately to stop scrutinizing other people, looking for what’s wrong with their face or their body or their life choices. In this restless modern world, it’s too easy to fall into the bad habit of judging yourself and others too harshly.
Alter your attitude to one of charitability, let go of the urge to be critical of others, stop seeing their differences as flaws instead, see them as endearing quirks, or merely as something that makes that person unique. Soon you should see a trickle-down effect on how you see yourself. The You who have oddities and foibles of your own.
Accept that no one is perfect
A perfectionist is never happy with who they are, how they look, or how they’re doing. Instead, they have unrealistically high standards that can’t be met. When they fall short of this ideal, they feel imperfect and beat themselves up for it.
Wanting to be the best version of yourself isn’t the same as being a perfectionist. Being your best means you work hard, you try, and you don’t give up. But it doesn’t mean you condemn yourself when things aren’t perfect, and you don’t take failure personally. Instead, you are kinder and more forgiving of yourself.
Open yourself to a colorful view of the world
It’s easy to fall into the habit of seeing things as right or wrong, good, or bad. Sure, someone else’s choice may not be your choice, and why should it? Maybe you don’t like snow or want to work for a multinational or live in a city. But it doesn’t mean those other choices are wrong; they’re just different.
Seeing things in black and white is limiting.
Open up a little and revise your worldview, so you see all the colors, all choices as equally valid.
Relax in the present and go with the flow
Perfectionists tend to trip over every little detail and allow imperfections to steal their lives. They act almost like the perfection police, waiting with bated breath to be added to their list of misdemeanors. Or they worry about future mistakes, wasting time trying to avoid them.
Don’t be that person! You can choose to stay focused on the here and now and experience what’s happening in your life. When you embrace imperfection, you learn to love what you can’t change as a natural part of life, it frees you up to enjoy the ride.
Obstacles become challenges that make life more enjoyable on your way to where you want to be. You can slow down, find your inner peace and gratefully notice all the good things there are in your life.
Promote imperfection as a way of life
Once you make peace with imperfection, you’re not sensitive to others’ opinions, you can be a lot more objective about life. Your perspectives change, and what once seemed tremendously important, suddenly doesn’t matter so much. You shift your reality. All experiences become just another aspect of a life lived richly, shaping the person you are continually becoming.
Imperfection stops being something to avoid at all costs. Think about it like this: perfection implies inertia, something you attain and must manage. It’s fragile and vulnerable. It puts an end to growth. And then what? You don’t want to stop learning and growing and developing, do you? Embracing imperfection means there’s always an opportunity to learn and grow and become a better person.
My final thought
I hope this post has given you a birds-eye-view on some of what you need to know about accepting your imperfections.
Keep in mind that some of your perceived flaws make you not just who you are, but uniquely memorable. So, before making alterations, consider why you want to do that and what you hope the desired result looks like.
If you are looking for further help, techniques used in Perfectly Imperfect 7 Ways To Embrace Your Flaws by The Law Of Attraction may be just the ticket.
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