Perfectionism

Being a camp counselor for Camp Weloki gives me the great opportunity to meet amazing teens.  I have a driving passion to make the world better for them, especially the young women I meet.  One teen I had the great privilege to work one on one with while we were at camp.  Sadly I left without getting her info so I could follow up with her.  Move forward a month and my nephew went to camp and low and behold she was a camper the weekend he was.  And I was also blessed to pick my nephew up thus getting a chance to see her and she looked SO amazing.  She openly gave me this amazing loving hug telling me she was doing so well.  Well now we are connected via Facebook (look how small the world is with Facebook!)
She posted this great quote:
Imperfection is beauty, madness is genius and it's better to be absolutely ridiculous than absolutely boring.

How many times do I see clients trying to obtain perfection?  Seriously, I see a lot of clients, especially women and young ladies trying to be perfect.  Trying to be perfect Mothers, perfect wives, perfect students, perfect employees...Guess what!?  Our failures are our greatest teachers in how to live life.  Our imperfections, our mistakes make us interesting- they build character.  These imperfections are what make us interesting!  And in striving for perfection our minds then create anxiety and likely depression.

Think about this this way- when you are at a social gathering do you enjoy someone's story about how successful they are or how they survived trials and tribulations to either succeed or move onto a new endeavor?  Yeah, I want to hear those interesting stories of what has "defined" their life and who they are.  To hear how someone just succeeds and succeeds gets boring and I move on to another conversation.  Really to be perfect is a repellent.  And the honest truth is perfection is an illusion, an abstract concept that doesn't exist.  So let your imperfections show!  We will all find you more interesting and fun to be around!
Be well, Be happy- Tara S. Dickherber, M.Ed, CPC