Strength Comes from Acceptance

Have you always tried to control every situation or every aspect of your life? Have you been trying to be perfect at everything that you do? Do you always get disappointed when things don’t go exactly as you planned? If you can say yes to any of these questions it is very likely that you are a bit of a perfectionist. Or if you are anything like I was and sometimes still am, you may be a huge perfectionist. You see, growing up I never considered myself to be a perfectionist because it never seemed like I could get anything right. About four years ago (after getting sober), I realized I was a perfectionist and the reason I didn’t think I could get anything right was because things didn’t go the way that I had wanted them to. I recently learned more about my issues with perfectionism and I hope they can help others with perfectionism as well. The biggest thing I have learned is that strength comes from knowing that you can’t be perfect. This does take a lot of strength and commitment to the changes that need to be made as well. There are many tips that can help you to realize that you can’t be perfect in life. You can do some things perfectly but no human being is perfect.

What are some of the tips that you can use to help you realize you can’t be perfect in life?

Perfectionism can stunt your growth in almost every aspect of life. As I previously mentioned, for years I lived a life of perfectionism. No, I wasn’t perfect but I wanted everything to be perfect and I thought this was possible. I have learned that it is not. The strength and the power that I feel now, knowing that I can’t be perfect is amazing. I hope that others can gain these feelings as well with some tips on realizing that there really isn’t anyway to be perfect (you can do things great but humans can’t be perfect).

Note and own your weaknesses and your strengths. Everyone in this world has weaknesses and strengths. When you are trying to learn that you can’t be perfect one of the things that you will want to do is write down your weaknesses and your strengths. After you have done this you can practice owning all of these weaknesses and strengths, day after day, until they become stuck in you. Once you do that then you can move on to learning more about overcoming your feeling of wanting to be perfect.

Do things differently than you had planned on purpose. One of the biggest issues that I had was getting upset when things didn’t go exactly as I had planned them. I know that others have this issue as well. One of the things that have helped me to overcome this is that I practiced doing things differently than I had planned. Yes, I did this on purpose. For the first few months of doing this it was very difficult and often I even got angrier but over time I became accustomed to knowing that plans could change without me having a freak out (as I liked to call them). If you can do things differently on purpose then you can learn this same lesson.

The biggest thing of all is to love who you are. One of my biggest problems (after years of downing myself for messing things up which is what I thought I was doing) was that I had very low self-esteem. I had to learn to love myself as I was. Yes, I had to learn this and many people do. It is nothing to be ashamed of. Some of the ways that you can learn to love yourself as you are include celebrating your successes, having fun for yourself, doing things that you enjoy and more.

Life isn’t perfect and no human is perfect but you can still live a happy life. With the tips above I have learned that I am not perfect but that doesn’t mean that I can’t love myself and live a happy life. I am hoping that these tips can help others find the happy life they want to live without having to feel perfect! You are a great human being and that is all that matters.

- Cara