You can never be perfect
None of us are perfect— we have our flaws, regrets, and desires. We wish something on our body would look differently than it does. We wish we were smarter, faster, thinner, stronger, more loving. We see all these things we want to change and ridicule ourselves when we can't seem to make them happen. We can't be everything at once, all the time, and for everyone.
If you're a "perfectionist" this may initially sound like a bad thing, but it's not! Let it free you— to open your heart, to feel the embrace of acceptance, and to truly and finally love yourself and those you care for.
Success won't always happen on the first try.
Or the 100th try.
"Good judgement comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgement." (Often attributed to Jim Horning, but according to him the original source is Mulla Nasrudin.)
So you try something and it fails. You start a new diet and on day 2 you eat 5 slices of pizza. You start writing a book, but get stuck and can't decide where to go with it. It doesn't matter what you do, the odds are you're to make a mistake.
The only difference between those who succeed and those who don't is persistence.
There will be things you'll never be able to do.
On the other hand, we won't always be able to perfectly master every single thing we attempt to do. Success isn't synonymous with perfection. You can have success without perfection, and you can have perfection without success. All you need to do it give your best effort and what will happen... will happen.
You can't expect perfection from others
Remember that your ideals and standards are your own. You can't expect someone else to live to yours. Your idea of a perfect afternoon is someone else's exact idea of a perfect hell. Each of us have a personality and set of beliefs unique to us. In your city, in your country or on your street, there might be "socially accepted norms" of how people think and what they believe, but each person interprets these norms in their own way, with their own individual spin.
One surefire path to failure is expecting others to always agree with you, to always know what you're thinking, and to do what you want them to do.
Acceptance is the answer
We have to give up this idea of perfection. Yes, we can strive to do better and be better. Yes, we can see where change needs to be made and put our best effort into making it happen.
What we can't expect is for everything we try to always work. We can't expect to get it all right on the first try. And we can't expect everyone to come along for the ride with us.
By accepting your imperfections, you're giving yourself
permission to try, to experiment, to live.
How many things might you try if failing wasn't a concern? Image courtesy of Bruce Berrien
