Dear one,

This is for my fellow perfectionists, who are also dreamers & visionaries and who have something to give the world.

We perfectionists learn, as a way to earn love and acceptance, to follow the rules and get it right. 

Our feelings and longings fall to the wayside. 

Coloring inside the lines and putting on a good show as we do, becomes all.

So when we have a vision or dream or creation, we look around for the rules to follow. So we can get it right — perfect.

When we don’t find any or many — because we’re seeing, dreaming, creating something fresh and different and new — we doubt ourselves, assuming we’re an imposter.

 

When we don’t fit the rules perfectly

we assume we are a fake.

I have a client who is a hard-working, risk-taking twenty-something who loves her work expanding her family’s event & conference business. 

Her parents get nervous if she isn’t bringing in the same amount of money every month, like clockwork. They get nervous if my client isn’t always working, always responsive, always online.

For months in a row, my client inspiredly works her ass off, creates outstanding events & conferences for her community, makes massive amounts of money, and then feels badly about herself when she’s completely unmotivated & uninspired for about 4-6 weeks after each event.

I had to point out that instead of being a problem, perhaps her ebbing and flowing focus was as asset.

Mother Nature doesn’t give us the same amount of snow or asparagus, month in and month out. Mother Nature ebbs and flows. Sometimes it’s asparagus season, sometimes it’s snow season.

Sure, if you wanted to pay a lot of money, you could get asparagus in wintertime, but it would taste sub-par.

Things grown outside of their natural growing season

don’t have their natural juice and vibrancy.

What if it’s the same with our work and creations?

“I’m not crazy, I’m a visionary,” is now my client’s new mantra.

When it’s event season, my client’s events (as well as my client herself!) are full of their natural juice and vibrancy.

And when it’s time to rest and recharge, my client reminds herself she’s not crazy (or broken or wrong or whatever else we feel when we are not following our dominant culture’s rules), she’s a visionary.

And she reminds her parents and team members to respect the ebbing, flowing seasons of their work, so there’s max juice and vibrancy in everything they do.

We perfectionists are ripe to feel like imposters.

We gauge our goals against the image of perfection we (or others) have for it, and when it doesn’t match perfectly, we feel a sense of failure, that we haven’t REALLY achieved the goal, we’re fakers.

But, my friend, what if you’re not an imposter, you’re actually a visionary, a leader, an edge-cutter, a dreamer, a Creatrix?

There is a world-to-be that only you can see.

What if you’re not faking it, you’re making it?

For a while you might be the only one who can see what you see. 

But that’s not because you’re a phony, it’s because you are a freaking flashlight at midnight.

To your max juice and vibrancy,

COACHING / COURSES / COMMUNITY
Moving you through the dark night & into your one wild precious life

PS: Photo by Wendy K. Yalom Photography