This is a big one for me, especially when in comes to languages since I am also passionate about languages and those who know me knows how I tend to be a perfectionist with that. What makes me write this post today is that I just did a show since I am now on blogtalkradio (you can check out the shows at http://www.blogtalkradio.com/auraemartinez) and today I was being a bit critical of myself as I was listening to myself. I afterwards said to myself “Oh well, I’m going to be fine with today’s show and that’s that”. And then I thought about delighting myself in my imperfections.
So what if you did this wrong?! So what if you made this mistake?! So what if it didn’t come out perfect?! SO WHAT?! I don’t know about you but when I put that much pressure on myself, I make MORE mistakes. I think this is the kind of pressure that none of us should put on ourselves. This kind of pressure can be a blow to your self-esteem if you feel you didn’t do something to your standard. There are times when it is just best to relax and know that you did the best you could with what you had. I know that this can be challenging if you are a perfectionist, I totally know because I can be that way, but this is just not healthy to your overall well-being. You put too much pressure on yourself, you tend to be more critical of yourself, if you are not careful, you even find yourself needing other people’s approval if you don’t approve of yourself and this becomes a snowball of things that just ends up taking things downhill.
If you made a fool out of yourself, so what?! I just made a fool out of myself last week by getting very angry at a situation that I should have not allowed myself to get that way, and what made it worse for me is that I know that person didn’t mean for me to feel that way and I got that angry but I had valid reasons, according to me at least. When you find yourself in this situation, rather than beat yourself up over it, ask yourself what did you LEARN from that experience. That’s the key. Learn from your mistakes, try to see how perfect you are with all your imperfections.
Part of well-being is being accepting of who you are despite all the mistakes you made, despite your past, despite your imperfections. It is important to find the joy in your imperfections because this will add more well-being to your life because you are not focusing on the negative, rather you are focusing on the positive. With this said, the next time you make a mistake or find something about yourself that you don’t like, delight yourself in that imperfection.