Learning to Embrace My Imperfections: The Journey of a Recovering Perfectionist

Join me for a 4-week journey through "The Gifts of Imperfection"

Welcome! I’m Dr. Jillian, a physician leader, toddler mom, and coach who writes Humans Leading to help overwhelmed professionals live less stressed, more satisfying lives. If the full post doesn’t show up in your e-mail, come over to the webpage or Substack App to see the whole thing. Subscribe here to get future posts straight to your inbox:

Photo by Artem Shuba on Unsplash

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✨ Last time: A self-check-in for Spring. Get started here.

✨ Today: we’re exploring a path to embracing our imperfections with a 4-week journey through “The Gifts of Imperfection”

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For the first part of the year, I was living in survival mode.

After my dad died in December, I was unable to focus on anything other than what I (and my family) needed right in that moment. I had no energy or ability to think about anything else, and I often felt like I was functioning on autopilot.

This led to me doing the bare minimum to get by at work and at home. I was often physically present but mentally absent as I tried to keep the train of my life on the tracks.

I’m proud to have made it through.

But, as I have come out of this time, I have also found myself feeling guilty at times for not getting more accomplished in my work or home life. And I have fallen back into my comfortable habit of judging my own limitations as a human being.

Old perfectionist habits die hard, right?

I have been thinking about imperfection a lot lately as I’ve been grappling with my self-criticism.

As a recovering perfectionist, I started writing Humans Leading as a way for me to remind myself and others that perfection is a myth and as a way for me to begin to embrace my own limitations, thereby becoming more self-compassionate, and also more compassionate toward other people.

As with everything, this is a work in progress. If you ask the people in my life, they could tell you multiple stories about how I have not perfected this yet. Which, I think, supports the idea that achieving perfection is impossible.

The goal for me is not to one day be perfect at embracing my limitations. Rather, the goal for me is to get better at it over time. The process has become the goal.

In order to make progress on this, I’ve needed tools. Thankfully, there are a lot of great ones available to us.

When I was recovering from burn out five years ago, I read Brené Brown’s The Gifts of Imperfection as a first step toward embracing my limitations.

A year later, I followed along with a podcast series on the same topic that she put out with her sisters. As I have been navigating my shortcomings and limitations with dealing with grief and navigating life, I found myself turning to both of these resources again. Hearing other people share their stories about grappling with these topics is comforting and encouraging.

As I got started, it dawned on me that many people who read Humans Leading are likely navigating the same struggles as I am right now. Each week, I get comments from people who feel:

• like they’re not enough

• like they’re not doing life right

• exhausted and worn out by hustling for worthiness

• stuck

So, I decided to bring my re-listening experience here to all of you with the hope that you might decide to join me.

The Ten Guideposts… who doesn’t want less of the list on the left and more of the list on the right?

Over the next 4 weeks, I’ll be sharing my experience with going through the 10 guideposts in the book and listening to the podcast series.

If you have the bandwidth to do this too, I think it could make a huge difference for you in your own life.

If you are too exhausted to take on one more commitment, I get it. Life is a lot right now.

As always, I’ll be offering my takeaways and experiences to learn from right here in the weekly posts, so you can continue to take what works for you and leave the rest.

If you’d like to join me, here are a few more details:

• Grab yourself a copy of the book from your local library or purchase it here

• Find the “Sister Series” podcast here

• Take the “Wholehearted Inventory” from Brene Brown to assess where you are currently at in regard to the 10 guideposts

• Reading/listening schedule and the date the post will be released on Humans Leading:

  • Week 1 (April 18th): Introduction, Guideposts 1&2, Podcast parts 1&2

  • Week 2 (April 25th) Guideposts 3&4, Podcast part 3

  • Week 3 (May 2nd) Guideposts 5, 6, 7, 8, Podcast parts 4&5

  • Week 4 (May 9th) Guideposts 9&10, Podcast part 6

And that’s it! It might seem like a lot when you look at it, but don’t let that stop you. You can go as slowly as you need to. All progress counts, no matter how slow you go.

And, as always as a reminder, don’t “should” on yourself during this process.

We never reach the end of growth. The process is the goal, not the destination.

I could waste my time beating myself up for needing to turn back to something that I’ve read before.

But instead, I am choosing to see this as the next phase of growth in my life. It’s the next way to unlearn things that are no longer helpful to me, to extend compassion to myself for my limitations, to experience more joy in my life, and to cultivate more compassion for other people.

I would love it if you joined me! Let me know if you’ll be participating in the comments. It is always easier to make change in your life when you have support.