Coffee House Writers

Top Menu

Main Menu

  • Home
  • Article Categories
    • Creativity
    • Culture
    • Design
    • Family
    • Fashion
    • Fiction
    • Food
    • Environment
    • Health
    • Home
    • Lifestyle
    • Memories
    • Nonfiction
    • Poetry
    • Politics
    • Relationships
    • Sports
    • Style
    • Technology
    • Travel
  • About Us
    • Our Story
    • Our Founder
  • Meet Our Admin
    • Chief Editors
    • Editors
    • Poetry Editors
    • Advertising Team
    • Recruiting Team
  • Testimonials
  • Apply
  • Login

logo

Coffee House Writers

  • Home
  • Article Categories
    • Creativity
    • Culture
    • Design
    • Family
    • Fashion
    • Fiction
    • Food
    • Environment
    • Health
    • Home
    • Lifestyle
    • Memories
    • Nonfiction
    • Poetry
    • Politics
    • Relationships
    • Sports
    • Style
    • Technology
    • Travel
  • About Us
    • Our Story
    • Our Founder
  • Meet Our Admin
    • Chief Editors
    • Editors
    • Poetry Editors
    • Advertising Team
    • Recruiting Team
  • Testimonials
  • Apply
  • Login
  • Calm Seas

  • Dreams Change: Life Continues

  • Gardening: The Ultimate Stress-Relieving Activity for Better Health

  • Visiting the Arboretum

  • The King

  • Time

  • Mr. Keith’s House – Part VI

  • I’ll Never Live Up to the Call

  • Skinchangers Chapter 2.2

  • Behind Your Mirror

  • A Gap In Time – 1

  • Saying Goodbye to NCIS: Los Angeles After 14 Years

  • Love’s Cut

  • A New York Summer

  • Welcome to Hell: How Can I Help You?

  • Paradise Falls: Chapter 1

  • Cloaked Miracles, Part 3

  • Becoming a Mother

  • A New Home

  • Unlock Your Hidden Potential: How to Tackle an Extraordinary Challenge with Ease

  • Appreciate Your Talent

  • Writing With ADHD: How Hard Could it be?

  • Southern Ways – Part 1

  • Skinchangers Chapter 2.1

  • The Book

  • The Familiar Mask

  • The Mystery of Cash Castle: Part 14

  • Shivering Leaves

  • Calming the Chaos of the Heavy Mental Load

  • Paradise Falls: Prologue

FamilyRelationshipsLifestyleHealthNonfictionCulture
Home›Family›Why We Want To Embrace Our Imperfect Lives Immediately For Enhanced Calm

Why We Want To Embrace Our Imperfect Lives Immediately For Enhanced Calm

By Dawn Marie Beauchamp
March 14, 2022
899
0
Share:
black white photo of a rose with imperfect petals
Jack Hawley / Pexels

Raise your hand if you consider yourself a perfectionist. My hand is raised to the ceiling. I recently decided to embrace imperfection, and now I am a recovering perfectionist. But I am not far enough along in recovery to put my hand down. Perfectionism runs deep. It is not something I can toss out the window overnight. All the perfectionists in the room; listen carefully. I would like you to join me in recovery and learn why embracing the imperfect will create greater calm in your life.

Perfection is Impossible

Can we all agree that it is impossible to be perfect? I know this may seem simple. The problem arises in practice when we do not allow ourselves the grace to be imperfect. For example, I made a plan to work on reading with my son every night. See what I did? I set myself up for the impossible from the beginning. Every night means we need to be perfect. Then on day three, when my workload was extra heavy, and bedtime came around without our reading practice, I felt guilty. Not only guilty, but I also criticized myself for not sticking to the plan. As a matter of fact, I expected we would follow this routine 100% of the time without fail. The expectation was perfection.

Perfection = 100 Percent of the Time

I sat at my desk lamenting the loss of our newly created routine. Really Dawn? Three days is all you can handle. I decided to text my over-critical thoughts to a friend. My quite intelligent friend replied with a FB post by author Josh Hillis. In this post, Josh states:

“There’s a frequency of doing something that will move you in the direction of what matters to you. That frequency is almost never 100% of the time.”

Wow. Doesn’t that hit the nail on the head? If I make a plan that requires 100% frequency, I set myself up to fail every single time. Not to mention, life is imperfect. Things happen, plans change, and we need to constantly adjust our actions throughout the day. So instead of focusing on the 100%, why not focus on repetition and moving forward. If we keep our momentum moving forward, we will make progress. Progress and perfection are not synonymous. Imperfect people with imperfect lives are capable of making amazing progress.

Imperfection Takes the Pressure Off

Embracing my imperfection injects increasing amounts of calm into my life. I am not required to be perfect. My life will run smoothly and be productive in the absence of perfection. In reality, I would never expect perfection from anyone else, so it is silly to expect it from myself. Life will always have a rhythm of ups and downs. Instead of fighting against the flow, embrace it. Even if that means there are times when the house is a disaster, we ate take out three times in one week, and the clean laundry from two weeks ago is still sitting unfolded in baskets – So Be It! We will also have times when the house is in order, the to-do list is completed, and we’re sitting on the front porch talking at the end of a busy day. I will miss the joy of the second scenario if I constantly focus on the first.

Recovery is Hard

After spending a considerable amount of time living with perfection as the one and only goal, recovery is tough. It will take time. There will be relapses. It is important never to stop embracing your imperfect self in the process. As you set goals, remember they are a framework in which to make progress. Goals change. Dreams shift. People grow. Our success comes in moving forward. Whether it is a messy, tumultuous journey, or a simple straight path, progress is progress. Leaning into the imperfect journey allows for less criticism and more grace. More grace creates more calm. Calm leaves room for clear thought and new ideas. It is all connected. In other words, releasing perfection has the potential to take you to new places that are currently blocked by the walls of negative self-talk and personal doubt. The road to recovery is hard, but there are glorious mountains of new adventures on the other side.

Immediately Embrace Imperfection

Here we go, my perfectionist friends, choose one area of your life and immediately embrace all the imperfection that goes with it. Pick something small; baby steps are still steps. Ultimately, as you change your mindset around this one simple thing, you will notice your energy shift. Do you feel the calm creeping its way in? It might take a little time. Remember, you do not need to be perfect about imperfection either. Embrace the calm, nurture it, and watch it grow into something bigger.

TagsPerfectionismCoffee House WritersimperfectionperfectionistperfectionMental Health
Previous Article

Playtime

Next Article

Fall In Love With The Humble Lemon

0
Shares
  • 0
  • +
  • 0
  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

Dawn Marie Beauchamp

Dawn Marie Beauchamp is a wife and mother of three glorious children living in the great state of Michigan. She can be found at Controlled Chaos: Embrace the Adventure of the Everyday blogging about faith, family, food and everything in between. Dawn and her husband run a growing electrical company and are avid DIY-ers. In their spare time, Dawn and family love to spend time outdoors - boating, fishing, hiking, hunting, and snowmobiling.

Related articles More from author

  • Heart drawn in sand
    PoetryNonfictionRomance

    Enigma

    January 30, 2023
    By Aviva Derenowski
  • CreativityFictionEntertainment

    Eerie Writing Prompts

    July 8, 2019
    By Donna Trovato
  • Ace of Spades Lighter
    RelationshipsMemoriesEnvironmentCultureLifestyleNonfictionMediaRomanceFamily

    The ‘A’ Is Not For Ally

    September 13, 2021
    By Lorelei
  • Divorce and Dating
    FamilyRelationshipsRomance

    Divorce And Dating And Other Disasters At Age 40: Part 21

    August 15, 2022
    By Debbie Hibbert
  • EntertainmentCreativityRelationshipsFictionMemories

    Overflowing Heart: Part 4

    December 9, 2019
    By Molly Spence
  • A girl sitting.
    HealthRelationshipsHomeLifestyleNonfiction

    Just Sit

    August 30, 2021
    By Joanne Curtain

Leave a reply Cancel reply

You may be interested

  • Stop
    LifestyleNonfictionHealthPoliticsFamilyRelationshipsHome

    Keep Your Hands Off My Menthols

  • Rolling hills
    EntertainmentCreativityFamilyRelationshipsFictionHome

    The Red Maiden, Part Three

  • CultureFamilyLifestyleHealth

    Emotion Commotion: How Emotions Affect Health

Find us on Facebook

About us

  • coffeehousewriters3@gmail.com

Follow us

© Copyright 2018-2023 Coffee House Writers. All Rights Reserved. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s administrator and owner is strictly prohibited.