The Pressure of Perfection

Towards the beginning of this year I had a talented friend of mine completely overhaul my website. If you’re here, you can see just how beautiful this site is! As everything began to come together, I was overwhelmed with the excitement of launching the new site. I even secretly showed some of those closest to me. I loved how she my new bio area and just how perfectly it encapsulated me and my heart. The new color scheme was exactly what I had envisioned and the details were just so perfectly executed.

All I had to do was tweak past blogs, edit old photos to keep things cohesive, and start writing again. As time began, I immediately felt this pressure to have everything on my end be perfect. In my eyes, if perfection wasn’t achieved, I couldn’t relaunch. I couldn’t possibly show this to everyone. Since my site was done so perfect, I needed what I wrote to be perfect as well.

As the months passed, the pressure almost took me out of writing altogether. To say I was overwhelmed was an understatement. I questioned my abilities as a writer and a communicator.

Here I am though, back at writing, and ready to give up the idea of perfection!

Perfection is a Lie

If we open our eyes for a minute, we will realize that perfection from imperfect people is impossible. (Read that again.) We are completely incapable of perfection. If we know that perfection is an impossible standard, why do we feel as though we can achieve that? Do we feel deep in our hearts that maybe if we just try harder we can make that happen?

Perfection doesn't exist outside of our creator, therefore we need to let go of these impossible standards we have been burdened with and be ourselves. We have to learn to be satisfied with the imperfect human we were made to be, and recognize perfection to what it really is, a lie.

Nobody Will Judge You as Much as You

Though we put this standard on ourselves, we don’t ever put that standard upon others. Why is it though that we have set this standard for ourselves, yet do not keep this same standard for others.

Have you ever asked someone what they think of you as a whole? Who they believe you are deep down, what you stand for, the good and the bad? If you have, you’ll notice that others are so much kinder to us than we would be to ourselves. They might tell us how funny we are, how they love our smile or hair, or how we are really good at something.

We will almost never hear someone tell us that we have too large of calves, and oversized forehead, that our fingers or feet are too chunky. We will almost never hear someone tell us that they notice the weird faces we make and how we need to stop. Nobody judges us harder than ourselves.

It’s Okay to Be Imperfect

We were all created with unique perspectives and talents, yet none of us were created without flaws. It’s okay to mess up our words, okay to let others down from time to time, okay to have a larger than life personality or be timid. Whoever we are and wherever we are at in our lives, remember it’s okay to be imperfect. The the best thing we can do for our own sake is being proud of our unique and imperfect selves. And the best thing we can do for our loved ones is fully embrace the good and the imperfect.

Love who you are and who you were created to be, because the one who made you is very much satisfied in you.