Many of us are goal driven in life, and while this is perfectly okay — and for many people, helps to push them towards leading a more fulfilled life — we can often feel deflated when we reach them and wonder whether we actually did enough. Social psychologists say that our modern work culture is partly to blame for these feelings of inadequacy or underachievement, and by always trying to pursue perfection, we inadvertently set ourselves up to fail.
Experts say that individuals often see perfectionism as a symbol of their own worth, and if they don’t achieve their idea of perfection, they’re simply not worthy. In reality, this perpetual search for perfection can actually hinder and hold us back from reaching our true potential, when what we should be doing, is embracing our flaws to get the most out of life.
How can embracing our flaws make us happier?
There are in fact, several ways in which celebrating our imperfections can help us feel more content and satisfied, and below are the most common:
Unrealistic expectations can be done away with
Continually seeking perfection, whether it’s in our personal, work lives, or both, can leave us feeling part of a constant merry-go-round that never stops, especially if we never achieve our idea of perfection.
When we don’t achieve our idea of perfection, we feel thoroughly stressed out, dissatisfied and unworthy, and for many, this sense of not quite being good enough, simply never ends. However, teaching ourselves to acknowledge and accept our mistakes, and appreciate that we can learn from them, can help lower our stress levels and encourage the belief that failure is not a sign of weakness.
We can become more self-compassionate
In the fast-paced world we live in today, we’re all pushed hard towards achieving our goals, and the feeling that we shouldn’t be satisfied until our goal is reached, can make us foster feelings of negativity and unworthiness. What psychotherapists recommend, is that when we ‘fail’ to achieve our goals, or don’t succeed at something in quite the way we had hoped, we should again, take the time to embrace our failings and try not to be so hard on ourselves. Practising self-compassion can be wonderfully cathartic, and even helps us to go easier on others who are failing to achieve perfection.
Our goals outside of the realms of social media, can be celebrated
With the ongoing prevalence of social media, culture has become more and more visual and sites like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter dominate many people’s lives right from when they first rise, until they go to bed. Perfection and the struggle to achieve it, becomes so much more important to us than the reality, and striving to reach the ideals of social media stars and influencers, becomes our primary concern. To combat this, professional counselors say that we should instead be encouraging ourselves, and others (particularly the socially conscious younger generation) to not just appreciate our flaws, but embrace them. Going off-screen and focusing on what’s actually going on in the real world, can remove us from chasing unachievable ideals, and feel better about our successes achieved without the influence of our online personas.
To help us feel better about ourselves (and lets’ face it, we’re all pretty wonderful as we are!), encourage us to celebrate wins that take place outside of the realms of social media, and ultimately, be more successful in life, we should all try to truly embrace our flaws.
