Today, I want to talk to you about embracing being flawsome.
What is flawsome?
Flawsome is the concept that you’re flawed, but you’re awesome. Here’s a news flash: no one is a perfect human being, not you, not me, no one is perfect. We need to not just embrace that, but also celebrate it and understand that being perfect is not only not attainable, it’s also not desirable.
So, being flawsome: this is the understanding that in order to be liked, in order to be loved, in order to connect with other human beings, we don’t need to be a perfect person. In fact, quite the opposite is true. People connect with you with your flaws. They actually understand you better, they feel closer to you, when they see your little, fluffy underbelly. When we act like we’re so wonderful, so perfect; they know they’re not perfect. You’re acting like you’re perfect. Who wants a perfect friend? Honestly, who wants that? If you’re perfect, you ain’t my friend. I like friends who laugh so much that snot comes out of their nose. I like friends who are quirky and weird. Because I get that; that’s my tribe right there.
Understand that you’re not perfect
You may not be perfect but that that’s actually what’s so great about you is the first step in embracing it, and when you can embrace it, you understand that you don’t need to strive for perfection, because striving for that will cause you mass anxiety. Trying to be this perfect human is impossible. So imagine: you’re trying to do something that you know very well is impossible; it’s like trying to teach a fish to climb a tree. Why would you bother?
The point is that when we allow ourselves to be imperfect, when we allow ourselves to be seen as vulnerable, when we allow people to see us as kind of a bit weird, a bit off-ball, that’s when they connect with us.
What’s not ‘perfect’ about me
For example, I have no sense of direction, zero, and I used to try and hide it, cover it up. I used to think it was some kind of slight on my intelligence. Like, how could I be this clever woman and not know how to use motorways? Because I don’t get the junction thing, I don’t have a north south east west, it doesn’t make any sense to my brain. People keep trying to teach it to me. I just don’t get it. I literally don’t get it. Now, does that mean that there’s something wrong with me? Or I’m less intelligent? No, I just don’t have that particular type of intelligence. I can play any musical instrument you give me, I can speak many languages. I just don’t know my north, my south. I don’t understand where things are in relation to things. I just don’t get that.
I can cook really well, but you wouldn’t want to eat anything I’d baked, because my brain gets bored and I go off, and I don’t measure things, and I just substitute one ingredient for the other, because it should be close enough, right? And then I forget to time things. So I’m really bad at baking, great cook. Does that mean you don’t want to come to my house? No, of course you do, you’ll get a great meal. It’s just that I won’t be baking.
I wear odd socks, or no socks, A or B. I don’t believe in matching socks, life’s too short, but they have to feel kind of similar. So one can’t be woolly and one silky; that doesn’t work in my brain. I have really set routines that I do at night time before I sleep because they help me sleep better.
What else is weird about me? I love gingernut biscuits with peanut butter on them because I think that’s really tasty. In fact, one of my favourite snacks is apple and like stinky cheese, or goat’s cheese, because that just floats my boat. So I like weird kind of combinations of foods. Do you know what I mean? Nobody is perfect and ‘normal’.
Can we agree to that?
So let’s agree to that. Let’s all make a mass agreement that that’s it’s ok. And then we can all stop pretending to be perfect. We can all stop pretending to be perfect on social media. We can all stop trying to be perfect to our spouse or if we’re dating. Because the other thing that’s really important, you need to understand, is if you’re trying to be perfect, you’re trying to people-please. You’re trying to make sure that everybody likes you.
I know you don’t like everyone
Now, there are several problems with this. First and foremost, you don’t like everybody. Don’t sit there and tell me that you like everybody, because you don’t. So imagine: if there’s someone that you don’t like, that you’re trying to get to like you, and they like you, you’re going to have to hang out with them – but you don’t actually like them. So there’s a bit of a flaw in that plan. It’s okay that people don’t like us, because we don’t like everybody else.
Number two, if you try and pretend to be something you’re not, you have to try and cover up the fact. I will openly tell people, “What does that mean? I don’t understand that,” because I’m not trying to hide the fact that I don’t have that piece of knowledge. Maybe that piece of knowledge has eluded me because it’s been irrelevant to me my entire life. So I will openly say, “Can you explain that to me? I don’t get what that is.”
Here’s the thing: when you try and pretend that you understand everything, you’re trying to pretend you’re perfect, you’re trying to pretend that you like things that you don’t like . . . Have you ever done that when you were younger and you were dating, “Yeah, sure I like Star Wars and Led Zeppelin, like who doesn’t, right?” I’m showing my age now, but do you know what I mean? And then people quiz you on it, and you have no clue? What happens is, people smell Fake. Now, you’re doing it with the best of intentions; you’re doing it because you want them to like you, but they don’t know that. They just smell Fake.
It’s like a survival instinct: when we sense fake in other people, we don’t connect with them, because we distrust it. “There’s something that you’re not telling me, there’s something that’s not true about you. So I don’t feel okay about you, and I don’t quite know why, but I know that you’re not being honest, so I’m going to presume you’re not an honest human.” And nobody wants to hang around people they can’t trust. Nobody wants to hang around people that they don’t feel are being honest. So we’re busy trying to pretend that we’re this perfect person, while in fact we’re creating a barrier for people actually getting to know us.
Plus you get to be in my inner circle
The other thing is if you know how weird I am, if you know all my little strangenesses, you’re going to connect with me on a different level. You’re in my inner circle, you’re in my gang, and that endears me to you, that makes you feel close to me, that makes you feel like you know the secrets. And if I show you my soft, fluffy underbelly, you will show me yours. So, if I’m vulnerable, and I accept that I’m not perfect, and I show you that I’m not perfect, you connect with me. You also show me your imperfections, so I connect with you. You understand me, you trust me, because I’m being authentic, and there is no actual downside.
Now, am I going to say, “Yeah, just show everybody your vulnerability, walk round with your vulnerability hanging out”? No. People have to earn the right to see all of your stuff. But the less time and energy we spend trying to show that we’re perfect, the more we can spend time and energy on looking after ourselves, taking care of ourselves, working on our mindset, being kind to ourselves, having the courage to be kind to other people.
There’s a book that I read by Brené Brown (I love her) if you’ve never read her work, I’ll put the link to the book below. She did a whole book called The Gifts of Imperfection and it’s a great book; it’s all about letting go of who you think you were supposed to be, and embracing who you are. It’s a great book on this topic. But in general, just understand that nothing good comes of aiming for perfection. It causes anxiety, it causes people to distrust you, it causes disconnect.
Itchy brain
There’s something in psychology as well called cognitive dissonance. And what that is, is this is what I believe in, but thatis my behaviour. So this is my actual belief, this is how I think people should behave, this is what I think about myself, but that is how I’m behaving. So they’re not the same. The difference between the two is what is called cognitive dissonance. In layman’s terms, it’s basically like an itchy brain; it’s very uncomfortable for our brains to believe one thing and do something else. That doesn’t sit well. So what we tend to do is, you’d think, “Well, we’ll just raise our behaviour to match our beliefs.” Nuh-uh. It’s easier to lower our standards and lower our beliefs.
So we actually start trying to persuade ourselves that we’re a different human than we actually are, that we believe something different than we actually do, and it’s really uncomfortable for the brain, massively uncomfortable. I hope I’ve managed to convince you: there’s no benefit at all for trying to act like this perfect human. I literally would not want a perfect friend. Would you? Would you want that woman that shows up and she looks perfect, and everything in her life is rosy? Because we see enough of that on social media. We don’t need it in our friendships, in our relationships as well.
Okay. So embrace being flawsome. Understand it’s the very best thing for your soul, for your heart, and for all the relationships in your life.
To watch a video on this topic on my YouTube channel please click on the link below:
Being Flawsome is a topic that we doing into a lot of detail about on my Signature Transformation Programme which starts again in January. Here is the link for you to get some more information:
Transformation Programme
This is the book I mentioned by Brené Brown:
Photo by Michael Mims on Unsplash