Perfect schmerfect

I came across an illuminating audio interview with Brene Brown that was part of a series on successful women balancing motherhood and careers and living a full life.

Brene Brown talks in her interview about how we judge ourselves and how many of us (ahem, me included) battle with perfectionism. This does not mean that perfectionists think we are perfect, rather it means that we hold ourselves and most things we do to an unrealistically high standard. Perfectionism is counter-productive and actually stands in the way of feeling happy and living in the moment and just getting things done. It can be paralyzing, as we wait until something is just right before taking action. We wait until our blog post is perfect before posting, we wait until we've repainted the kitchen to host that dinner party.

And guess what? We post less onto our blog, and those ideas never gets expressed. We host fewer parties, and miss out on the joy of the company of our friends. And on and on. Perfect really *is* the enemy of the good.

The real nugget of genius in this interview is when Brene describes how each of us has our own unique set of circumstances and responsibilities in our lives. No one else has the same family, job, hobbies, skill set, etc. as we do (or the genes and experiences that make up who we are today). So we really don’t have anyone to compare ourselves to.

Instead, we tend to compare ourselves to the ideal. We compare our mothering to the most committed mother we know. We compare our work to the best in our field. We compare our fledgling new business to someone who has a thriving business already. We compare our volunteer work to Mother Theresa. This is where the perfectionism comes in. We compare ourselves to the very best at it, to what we see as perfect. Then, naturally, we fall short because we are shooting so high, and then we beat ourselves up about it.

The secret is to - you guessed it - stop comparing ourselves. Recognize that we are unique, and just do our best. That is enough. 

I just need to show up, do my best, follow my heart, and trust that things will unfold as they should. Everything is as it should be on this fascinating journey.

P.S.

Brene Brown had a lot of great insights into parenting as well, which sheds more light on this post, and on motherhood and judgment and life in general.

She says that where we are in our own journey towards wholeheartedness (and feeling worthy), is a far better predictor of how our kids will turn out than anything else. We cannot give our children a stronger sense of self worth than we have ourselves. We need to model for them the kind of people we want them to be, we cannot teach it any other way. So...time for me to put down the parenting books and keep doing this kind of work on myself.

Another great things she talked about is this mythology that our journey ends when we have kids. It isn't true. In the early years of mothering you shift into self-sacrifice because babies need so much of you to survive. But after the first few years, we don't need to put ourselves on hold anymore. There doesn't have to be self-sacrifice. We can continue our journey as full-color, living, growing, vibrant human beings. In fact, to be a good parent, we must!

There is so much more to learn from her about being vulnerable and overcoming shame and being authentic. Luckily, she has written several books about it.