Laugh. Laugh at yourself. Stop kicking your own ass for your mistakes. Learn. Forgive. Move forward. We all make mistakes. 

Are you a perfectionist?  Man, that is a lot of pressure!  I know.  I’ve been there.  The urge to have the perfect life, the perfect job, to be surrounded by other perfect people who act perfect and say the perfect things and treat you as you perfectly deserve to be perfectly treated.  To raise perfect children who get perfect grades and who perform perfectly at sports and music and dance and art and are raised with the perfect co-parent who follows your lead on everything perfectly.  And to top it all off – you must be the most perfect of them all.  

WHEW! I think my blood pressure just went up!  Crazy stress!!

Listen.  It’s hard to let it go.  But if you don’t, you are never going to be happy.  No one will ever be perfect enough for you and YOU WILL NEVER BE PERFECT ENOUGH FOR YOURSELF.  

Lighten up.  (ugh.  that sounds so rude and condescending, doesn’t it?)  I mean that in the best way you can imagine.  The burden of perfection is an enormous weight on your shoulders – your heart – your friends – your family.  Lighten up this weight.

Some ideas:

Learn.  Make mistakes.  Make a lot of mistakes.  Learn the lesson in the mistakes. Apologize and make amends when and where you need to make them.  Forgive yourself and move on.

Live.  Play.  Get messy playing.  Have fun.  Lose games.  Win games.  Dance – badly.  Sing – horribly.   Just live.

Laugh.  Laugh a lot.  Laugh at yourself.  Laugh at your mistakes.  Laugh at your missteps. Laugh because you realize that you are just another mistake prone human being – the joke of the cosmos.

Love.  Love others even with their imperfections.  Love others because of their imperfections.  Love yourself.  Love all of yourself.  Love your quirks.  Love your big ears.  Love your knobby knees.  Love your frizzy hair. Love that you live life fully enough to make a ton of mistakes.  Love the lessons you learn from your mistakes.

Get out there and be perfectly imperfect! 

xo Genie