Embrace Imperfection: How Radical Self-Acceptance Can Free You from Perfectionism

Woman leading a workshop on Learning to Love yourself, at the Female Founders Summit 2024

Do you put a lot of pressure on yourself to be able to do it all? And to do it all perfectly? Do you tell yourself that if you don’t do it, it won’t get done?

Despite progressing in your career and receiving positive feedback, it never feels enough, you can never quite believe and accept it. 

So you keep setting goal after goal, in your personal and professional life and either fall into procrastination, holding yourself back from really going for it, because you don’t feel ready. Or you go for it! And maybe even achieve what you set out to achieve, but can’t quite celebrate or appreciate the achievement. The reason being that underneath, you still never quite feel enough.

Perfectionism can start to take you down a merry path of motivation, perseverance and drive…but quickly leads you onto the road to self-judgement, overwhelm, fear of failure, stress and burn out.

Radical self acceptance can step in as the superhero to this story. 

Acceptance isn’t about settling or shying away from goals and achievements. Instead it’s actually appreciating and acknowledging yourself along your path which can lead to deeper self worth, increased confidence and letting go of the need to be perfect all the time.

Acceptance allows you to be all the parts of you, without resistance or judgement. It’s through this you can recognise your strengths and belief that you can try and succeed without the pressure to be or do it all.

Here are 3 beautiful and radical ways to start accepting yourself today:

Empowering self talk

What are you telling yourself right now? Is it helpful? Would you say the same to someone else? The chances are the answer is no. We are all harder on ourselves than anyone else. What you are telling yourself, becomes your truth and shapes the way you see the world. By becoming aware of your self-talk you can reframe it. Ask yourself; ‘What would you say if you were cheering yourself on?’ And what evidence do you have to support that positive self-talk. The more you do this, the easier it will become to reframe your unhelpful self-talk with empowering self-talk.

Reframe mistakes and rejection

Oof! This was a tough one for me. If you’ve learned that mistakes are bad or shameful and rejection is personal, this can feel like an impossible task to reframe. Remember though that your thoughts and beliefs are learned, which means you can learn something different. Start with reflecting on past ‘mistakes’ and write down all the lessons and strengths you learned through those experiences. You can use this step anytime in the future you feel you’ve made a ‘mistake.’ Can you think of a time when you were ‘rejected’ and something even better happened? If not, again reflect on what you learned. For more on this check out the amazing 4Rs for rejection shared by Jamie Kern Lima.

Celebrate messy action

When you focus on needing to be ready, or perfect before you start, procrastination can affect even the most confident people. Before you know it, fear takes hold, it’s been weeks and you’ve talked yourself out of it. Instead of waiting to feel ready (because the truth is, you never fully do!) or needing the steps to be perfect, just start. Ask yourself; ‘What is one step I could take today?’ ‘What information do I already have that could support me?’Take that first step, and the most important part, celebrate yourself for taking the step. Don’t wait until the desired outcome, celebrate yourself for taking the action. This will help with knowing it’s ok to start without having all the answers. This will help build inner belief and celebrating will help with momentum to keep going. You can keep track using my Self Belief Journal 

Which of these 3 will you try first? I know the temptation can be to do all three, but letting go of that pressure and dedicating your energy to one you will be able to embrace it fully and start embodying self-acceptance every day through your thoughts, feelings and actions.

There is no such thing as perfection. We all bring our own uniqueness to the table and the more you can accept and acknowledge that, the more your confidence and self worth will grow, and you will let go of the need to be anything other than who you truly are.

For more guidance on loving and accepting yourself to health, happiness and success, I would love to join the Self Love Club, my fortnightly newsletter with rituals, tips and insights to living a more compassionate and fulfilling life.

How to let go of the opinions of others and embrace your true self

I remember as a child being taught not to take something that doesn’t belong to me, I’m sure you were the same. Well, I have a confession to make…I have been holding onto a ton of things that were never mine in the first place.

I’m talking about the words that come from others. Some of them said intentionally, others as ‘throw away’ comments. For example ‘You’re not as clever as X’ ‘Good girls are quiet’ ‘Hey thunder thighs!’ ‘You’re so sensitive! You always over-react.’

At a time when I was too young to question whether it was right or wrong, or even true. I didn’t even consciously believe it, I just accepted it.

Between the ages of birth to seven years old we are most receptive because are brain waves are theta to alpha. These brainwaves are so relaxed, taking in everything, like sponges. In this state, we believe everything we hear, from the people around us such as parents and teachers. These learnings form our core beliefs, with most being established by the age of seven.

These core beliefs shape how you think, feel, act and behave not just in childhood but as you continue into adulthood. For me, this led to thoughts of needing to constantly prove I was enough. It led to people pleasing, excessive working, and self abandonment. I found myself going along with things, even when they didn’t feel right, I would hide my own opinions and feelings, and felt responsible for keeping the peace and trying to make others happy.

If like me, you learned early on to value other’s opinions above your own, and that you needed to please others to gain love and value. That belief that the opinions of others matter, holds fast.

It was through coaching that I first became aware of my ‘limiting’ beliefs; the beliefs that were running in the background keeping me ‘playing safe’ and constantly trying to prove my worth. This awareness started my ongoing work to change my beliefs, particularly around letting go of the opinions of others.

So how can you start to change that? Especially when the foundations of your value and worth have been built on what others think?

1. Challenge the validity of what others say: Just because someone says something, it doesn’t make it so. Is it true? You don’t have to outwardly challenge the person, but you can still ask yourself, is it true? If it’s not, what is the truth, YOUR truth? Take that a step further by reflecting on the evidence to support your truth. You can say (to yourself or to them) ‘I don’t agree with you.’

   *I put this into action in a recent conversation with a family member who made a judgemental statement. I said ‘I don’t have to agree with you.’ This takes the power back. You can’t change what they say, but you can choose not to accept it. It felt a bit scary! But so empowering to say those words.

2. Using meditation to let go of your thoughts: Have you ever found yourself ruminating and reliving what someone says? It doesn’t change what happened, but you keep reliving the pain of it. Once you’ve done step one, challenging the validity, every time you find yourself thinking about it, say out loud ‘I am choosing to let go of this thought, it is not supporting me.’ I have a brilliant ‘unclutching’ meditation that can help you with this, you can check it out here

3. Work on your own internal locus of validation: This is about building up your own inner trust, so that you focus more on what you know and believe and less what others think, or might think. Get clear on on your values, passions and dreams. Go inward to seek answers. Spend time journaling and self reflecting on your choices, how you are living your values and celebrating learnings and your strengths. Coaching can really help you with this, I have a self-led online course that can get you started

4. Create your own personal validation statement: This is a strong and empowering statement to come back to anytime you find yourself hurt and holding onto the judgement of others or going along with something that isn’t right. Michael Gervais talks about this in his work as a ‘personal philosophy.’ You can start by reflecting on: When are you at your best, what are you believing about yourself? Who are the people you admire and what are their qualities? What are your favourite quotes and words that resonate with you?’ When you’ve reflected you can create your personal validation statement.

   Here’s mine: I accept my own truth. I believe in my abilities. I am following my own path.

Remember, what anyone else’s thinks or says is always a reflection of them. You can’t change it. You also don’t have to accept it.

If you struggle with perfectionism as part of your belief system, check out my last blog article where I provide some support to embrace acceptance instead.

I’ll leave you with this from one of my wonderful mentors, Michele Armstrong; Opinions or feedback from others is like your Granny’s hand knitted jumper. You can receive it with thanks. It’s then your choice whether to wear it or not.

Woman staring out to sea on a bright and sunny day

Maintaining Balance and minimising the overwhelm

We all feel overwhelmed sometimes. As a recovering perfectionist, overwhelm was once a semi-permanent badge of honour state. I thought that was what life was! To be successful you needed to be busy, all the time. If you weren’t burning the candle at both ends, surely you wouldn’t get anywhere!

This high pressure, low reward lifestyle led to regular burn outs, or freak outs. This led to only further pressure because my belief was I just wasn’t doing enough and if I did more or worked quicker, I would be good enough to get it all done.

This was of course a vicious circle eventually leading to immense pressure and self-sabotage and low self esteem. I was always chasing that impossible perfection without time to stop and realise that firstly perfect doesn’t exist and secondly, nobody can operate at that speed and pressure without release.

It’s taken a long time and inner work to give myself permission to slow down and realise that I needed to slow down. The magic that happened over time is that I realised in doing so, nothing catastrophic happened. The world didn’t stop spinning! My nearest and dearest still loved me! And guess what, I could actually be more successful!

Slowing down has actually been proven to lead to greater success . Top companies are now following this, seeing better results, as well as happier and healthier employees. Reading all the articles to support this could not make a difference for me. I was working against years of old habits, conditioning and beliefs that had me convinced that if I just sped up, I could do it all!

The change came when I made a commitment to change. I needed to change my habits, my actions, my behaviour. This led to positive results and slowly my thoughts and beliefs caught up. But it is a constant commitment.

These are my regular practises and approaches that help me to keep balance in my life:

Meditation — This is part of my daily practice. It helps me in a number of ways but primarily to physically and mentally slow down. I include breathwork in my meditation which helps to ground me and create focus especially when my mind starts to race. It helps me reflect and learn and return to my true peaceful essence, the quiet inside.

Journaling — This is also a daily practice. I start each day with my list of 10 things I am grateful for and why I am grateful for those things. Practising gratitude is an incredible tool for creating perspective and raising your emotional vibration. Gratitude is the opposite of fear, guilt, shame etc. and so when focused on it can create happiness and a stronger mental resilience. I journal to reflect how I am feeling, to understand my thoughts and emotions. Often it helps to slow me down and clear the space. Tim Gallwey has a brilliant prompt I often use with racing thoughts; STOP: Step back, Think, Organise your thoughts, Proceed. This can really help to slow the speeding up and respond rather than react.

Exercise — This is a big factor for me and often I notice when the overwhelm is creeping in, realising that exercise has dropped off. It’s a big destress tool and helps to bring me into the present moment. It doesn’t have to be intense, a walk, some yoga, even a kitchen disco! Anything to get the body moving and shaking off that tension.

Sleep — This became a very tricky one for me after my son was born. It is now a major trigger that if I don’t get enough sleep, my mind races, the overwhelm kicks in and everything speeds up. I now know that is the warning light on my dash board to take better care of myself.

Boundaries — As well as a perfectionist I was also a people pleaser. Double bonus! Which means that I have to work hard at my boundaries. I have had to learn to say no and to protect my energy and environment. It is still a work in progress! I can easily take on a lot emotionally and physically. I have realised over time, I cannot help anyone if I have burnt out. I can’t keep giving when I have stretched myself too thin. I can’t pour from an empty cup.

Cold showers — Wim Hof knows! I have a cold shower every morning. It wakes up my whole body and sends the endorphins rushing. But for me, it is the mental benefits. It helps with that ‘fight or flight’ our body goes into when we feel stressed or panicked. By allowing my body to feel that cold water each day, it’s getting used to the stress. I learn to breath through the stress and not let it overwhelm me.

None of these are magic cures. Some might resonate some may not. I still become overwhelmed, I still feel stress like everyone else. But now I have learned to slow down to lessen the overwhelm quicker. Not only do I move through the tension easier, I actually find I am allowing myself to slow down to then get back in the game quicker. I’m slowing down, to speed up. But now with a focus on gentle kindness, compassion and self love. I now realise that is the real key to success, to always be looking after myself.

Thank you for taking the time to read this article. I hope you’ve found this interesting. For more guidance on loving and accepting yourself to health, happiness and success, I would love to join the Self Love Club, my fortnightly newsletter with rituals, tips and insights to living a more compassionate and fulfilling life.