Self esteem is your ability to see yourself as a flawed individual, and still hold yourself in high regard.
– Esther Perel

Many of us have a core belief that we are not enough as we are. So we constantly seek approval. We perform, perfect and prove ourselves over and over.

Researchers have labelled this type of behaviour as ‘being a perfectionist’. At the core of our exhausting perfectionist behaviours, is a belief that “I must do more, achieve more, be more to be loved and accepted.”

Perfectionism is not self-improvement, but rather it’s trying to earn approval.

The crazy thing is, this mentality is futile and destructive. Most perfectionists grew up being praised for achievement and performance. You may have been praised for getting good marks at school, for manners, for rule following, people pleasing, appearance and high achieving in sports.

Some of the most common ways perfectionism shows up in our daily life:

Controlling food intake to look a certain way to feel loved and accepted
Keeping ourselves busy and never being able to slow down and rest
Being lethargic, and not taking action for a meaningful goal, due to fear of failure
Over-consuming or hoarding through unnecessary shopping to feel happy
People pleasing and over giving

These are all behavioural responses, to a deep sense within of ‘not feeling enough’ as we are. No matter what we achieve, we still feel like something is missing.

Behaviour never lies

A key question you can ask yourself if this sounds a bit familiar is, “What must I believe to be true, for me to behave in this way?”

In this way, the experiences that trigger us in our life are an opportunity to get curious about our underlying beliefs (our limiting beliefs).

It’s OK if we start to realise some perfectionist traits in our self (in fact this is a great starting point!). The key is to see how we could make incremental changes, and get a bit more perspective as to how we can live more courageously.

Our tendency is to look outward to ‘fix’ a difficult situation. We say to ourself “If only that person, or those circumstances could change, then I’d be happier”. Yoga encourages us to take a more empowering approach and look inward (instead of trying to control things externally), and ask, “How could I be contributing to this situation?

“When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves” Victor Frankl

Getting to the core of the issue

We can choose to shine the light of awareness on our stories that we are ‘not enough’, or that ‘we will be happy when’. Simply becoming aware of these stories and questioning whether they are helping us feel abundant, alive and well, helps shift our awareness.

We escape the limitations of our mind. We become awake beyond these primal constraints and stories we created when we were young. We start to notice that we have picked up unhelpful story about ourself from the fear based culture around us– the media, from school, our parents. Researchers call this ‘social conditioning.’ Paul Dolan, Professor of Behavioural Science in Psychological and Behavioural Science at the London School of Economics and Political Science explains that social conditioning or social norms are prescribed by others and adopted by us. They are not our true core authentic beliefs.

Your belief system can heal you, and it can make you very sick – Marisa Peer

Embrace imperfection, embrace a growth mindset

Practicing yoga and mindfulness can us help us feel empowered to make changes in our thoughts and behaviours step by step. Ultimately, living a life with meaning, growth and fulfilment means you will need to trade in your perfectionist qualities for imperfection.

Self improvement and personal growth is essential for living a fulfilling life. A growth mindset is taking on a mindset focussed on asking our self ‘ how can I improve?’

Examples of embracing imperfection:

You need to go on a weekend away to Wellington. You know there will be lots of outdoor walking and also a nice dinner out in the evening. Rather than squeezing into your over night bag your usual ‘going out shoes’ you just take your walking shoes that ‘sort of also work’ as a going out shoe.
Benefits: Your bag is a lot lighter. This makes a huge difference to the comfort of carrying around your bag during the day, and you have more freedom to experience more, more walking, and spontaneous interactions that bring your joy, and physical health benefits.
You have a speaking function coming up. Instead of attempting to deliver the ‘perfect polished speech’ or workshop presentation you decide to aim for ‘average delivery’ - something that’s 60% of your best effort.
Benefit: You feel more slightly more relaxed during your delivery knowing it doesn’t have to be perfect. Being relaxed means when you make little glitches along the way you are more likely to just ‘move on’ rather than dwell on it. Also, the recipients of your speech will likely feel like they are getting to experience something more authentic and meaningful if its not 100% polished and perfect.
Planning a workout? Aim for 30minutes, rather than 1 hour.
Benefit: You are more likely to do it more consistently if the idea sounds more ‘do-able.’ Consistency is more important than intensity when we are trying to ‘get back on track’ with our health and wellbeing.
Thinking of a big life change? Maybe you want time out to live more simply, have some time to yourself? For me, when I left my corporate job to live a more simple fulfilling and creative life, I said to myself - ‘I’ll treat this as an experiment with my life’. Even though I never really knew how things would work out, I was motivated to take a risk and embrace being imperfect. In fact I would say its more fulfilling not planning everything out and having a mindset of “I know I don’t know everything yet but I think I have enough within me to work it out and learn as I go.” This experience lead to many more benefits than I ever could forsee.

Live with courage

To summarise, living with courage means embracing imperfection. Most people are too scared to take a risk with their life for fear of failure. To live courageously means we say to our self ‘It’s OK to make a mistake, because I know I can learn and grow.’ So telling our self ‘I am imperfect’ means we are ok with stuffing up.
We might not feel courageous straight away but embracing a mindset of imperfection will lead to a more courageous life. Step by step we take more risks and choose love over fear. We start to notice in fact, everything and everyone is imperfect – you, me, everyone, and even everything in nature when we really look closely.

Remember you are fabulously imperfect – just like the rest of us. So what would you do next if you were not scared of failing?

Learn more about living with purpose and inner vitality by checking out the offerings at Heart and Mind Yoga

Jo Jarden is a certified personal trainer and yoga teacher in Christchurch New Zealand and the founder of Heart and Mind Yoga studio. She has 10 years experience in health promotion in New Zealand and Australia including management and promotion of national chronic disease prevention programs. She now helps people one on one with their wellbeing through yoga teaching, personal training, workplace yoga and wellbeing workshops.

Qualifications include:

Certified Yoga Teacher Santosha Yoga Institute, Registered Australian Yoga Alliance 2017
Certificate in Advanced Personal Training, Fit College New Zealand, 2016
Bachelor of Science with Honours Public Health. University of Canterbury, New Zealand 2006
Bachelor of Arts Mass Communication and Psychology. University of Canterbury, New Zealand 2005

Are you often looking for approval?