Be Happy without Being Perfect

This entire week, Karen Jo Shapiro, a licensed psychologist who practices as a leadership, career and personal development coach, is sharing her wisdom on taking care of ourselves. Please give Karen a hearty FemCentral welcome by leaving your thoughts on her posts!

It’s always been striking to me that regularly I see the most high-achieving, effective women beating themselves up mentally and emotionally. Sometimes this harshness is on a conscious level, even perhaps spoken out loud…. And more insidiously it can be the background music of your life, to the tune of “not enough” (I’m not good enough, smart enough, thin enough, pretty enough, hard working enough etc.)

One of the things I learned from working as a therapist in a college counseling center is that even the most beautiful of women, whom everyone could envy, could be capable of coming in to therapy and saying hateful things about themselves.

These stern and demanding voices are internalized versions of expectations we may have experienced as children as well as messages we are constantly picking up from our perfection-focused culture.

In what ways to you make yourself feel bad? Do you have to have your house a certain way, look exactly a certain way, have your kids achieve a certain way in order to feel okay? Do you create “shoulds” for yourself that don’t reflect your true wants and preferences? Do you feel like you are on a treadmill that never stops?

For today, simply become aware of how often you beat yourself up inside during the day and try to replace it by saying something kind to yourself. Imagine how you would feel if someone else were saying to you all day the things you say to yourself. The more you become mindful of what you are doing internally, the better chance you have of actually feeling better (because, honestly, who can feel all right when someone is putting them down all the time?)

An excellent resource for this inner drive towards unreasonable perfection is Be Happy Without Being Perfect, by Alice Domar. It will guide you towards letting go of rigid demands inside yourself—the relentless quest that does not lead to peace. One day I was recommending this book to a client and I accidentally called it “Be Perfect Without Being Happy.” We both started to laugh—because, the fact is… that’s a great summary of the choices.  You can be happy without being perfect…. Or you can be perfect without being happy!

BIO
Karen Jo Shapiro is a licensed psychologist who practices as a leadership, career, and personal development coach. In her private practice, Your Next Steps Coaching, (www.ynscoaching.com), she works with individuals and groups, both in person and by phone, as well as lead workshops, ongoing groups, and trainings. She is especially interested in helping women to succeed in their dreams (whether career transition, entrepreneurial, artistic or other), build strong relationships with other women, and take care of themselves.

She is also on adjunct faculty at the Center for Creative Leadership and a member of the Guilford County Non-Profit Consortium.

Karen Jo is a mother of a 14-year-old girl and 9-year-old boy. She is the author of two children’s poetry books by Charles bridge. (www.kjshapiro.com)