I wrote a little article about this in May, mainly discussing how striving for Perfection keeps you stuck………but actually it’s worse than that: striving for Perfection leads you away from LOVE and towards rejection, judgement, isolation, unfairness and unkindness.
On one of my many modules on my MindMap course, we explored the connection between Love and Perfection and I wanted to share some of our thoughts with you:
We defined Love as 3 things:
Acceptance – who you are, what you believe, what you do. “This is so”.
Connection – our values, passions, perspectives are aligned with others, and our desire is to share them with those others
Care – knowing that someone/something is important by observable, demonstrative actions.
If we think about this, if we or others are not accepting of who we are, what we do, what we believe – how much do you feel loved?
If you don’t have the social connections (whether that’s family or friends) with similar values, beliefs as you – how much do you feel loved?
If you are hearing people say they love you, but they act in a completely different way – how much do you feel loved?
You cannot have Love without those 3 aspects being present, the more Acceptance, Connection and Care you feel, the more Love you feel.
Let’s not forget this especially relates to US too. If we don’t Accept, Connect and Care for ourselves – can we really love ourselves?
So, what has all this got to do with Perfection?
Well, no matter how you dress up Perfection…I just want it to be perfect before I send out this newsletter….or I just want to lose weight, look a certain way, find the perfect partner, have the perfect house, have my children go to the best Universities etc etc, the result is the same – fear of rejection, judgement, isolation, unfairness and unkindness. Perfection points out everything that is wrong!
Why do we strive for perfection? Basically, we do it to feel loved, in the hope that when we are perfect, or our lives are perfect, then we will feel more loved, but actually, in striving for perfection, all we are really doing is pushing love away.
Many years ago, my business mentor drummed into me that I should never strive for perfection, that 7/10 is good enough – what a brilliant piece of advice that was 🙂
I abide by this all the time: when I write my weekly newsletter to you, I know my spelling isn’t always spot on, nor my grammar, nor at times how I express myself. I know when I’m running my Mindset course that I sometimes make mistakes, I don’t have all the answers. When I’m presenting, I sometimes go on too long, sometimes forget what I wanted to say, same with my classes, sometimes I say the wrong things, forget what I wanted to cover that day, and on and on……….
But, if I was striving for perfection, I would let the fear of being judged, the fear of rejection, the fear of no one connecting with what I’m saying, the fear of people being unkind about the things I’ve said stop me, it would keep me stuck exactly where I was, and you wouldn’t be:
Reading my ‘ponderings’ every week in this newsletter
Experiencing huge changes and shifts in your thoughts, beliefs and life on my Mindset Courses
Enjoying the variety of new exercises I bring into your Pilates classes
Sampling lots of new experiences in our Well Being Wednesday
Chilling in our Meditation sessions
All these are brought to you from a place of LOVE simply because I am not striving for Perfection 🙂
Accept, Connect and Care for yourselves