“Success is never final, failure is never fatal. It’s courage that counts.” John Wooden
Perfection.
I’ve let the fear of being less than perfect stand in my way too many times of going after what I want. Why is failure so difficult to accept? Being afraid to fail keeps me stuck and derails my progress to move forward.
Not anymore. I’m moving towards acceptance. Accepting imperfection. Accepting failure.
A message that keeps being echoed by successful entrepreneurs and business people alike is that one NEEDS to fail in order to succeed.
My friends are so smart and I share with you their words around a couple of conversations I had with them about perfection, and I’m paraphrasing a bit as I mistakenly did not write it down. See? Mistake. I’m not perfect. And that’s OKAY. (I do have to tell it to myself, in hopes if I say it out loud…or on paper, that it makes it true. And it’s on the internet, so it must be true! WHAT?!?! Not everything on the internet is true? Say it isn’t so.) Anyways, I digress…
I was talking with my good friend and running buddy, Jennifer, about a job interview that I had and how I ultimately did not get the job. To me, I saw that as a failure, because I did not achieve what I set out to do. Her take – not a failure at all. According to her, I put myself out there and took a risk, learned from the experience, causing personal growth and what about that is failing?
Perspective. It’s all about looking at things from a different angle.
I was talking with my friend, Jessica, about perfection and my new found outlook working on accepting being less than perfect. She said she was a recovering perfectionist. I love that notion! She also said that imperfection is perfection, because it creates what is supposed to happen. She reminded me that some of the world’s most amazing inventions were mistakes. The slinky, silly putty, the chocolate chip cookie! Seriously, the chocolate chip cookie might be the most imperfect, perfect invention EVER! Quite possibly, imperfection and perfection are intertwined.
“Our greatest glory is not in never failing, but in rising every time we fall.” Confucius
Is this blog post perfect? Nope. But guess what? That’s okay. I accept it in all its imperfectness and that right there is PERFECT!
XO,
Mel