The Myth of Being Perfect

I know I'm not the only one that can be really hard on myself. The pressure's always there to be perfect in all parts of life. The wife, the mother, the daughter, the coach, the everything...
In high school, I was constantly disappointed in myself for not being the person I wish I was. What I did to myself was completely unrealistic and completely unfair. It was a vicious cycle of feeling useless and worthless.
I learned slowly how to actually like and appreciate myself. I have accepted that I'm not always going to be great at everything and I'm not always going to make everyone happy. It's OK that I'm going to mess up and at the end of the day- everything is going to be fine.
Here are some different ways I got my life headed in the direction I wanted:

1. No more toxic friendships- I got sick and tired of spending time with people that made me feel down right bad about myself and spent my time with people that actually brought me up and made me happy.
2. Start taking responsibility- At the end of the day it was up to me and the choices I made- If I was still feeling miserable and down it was up to me to take responsibility and if I wanted to feel better about myself I had to take action to get there.
3. Lower expectations of myself- I had to be realistic and realize that trying to be perfect at everything was just not going to happen. I learned to feel good knowing that I just tried my best.
4. Lower expectations of others without judgement- The less I expected from others, (but at the same time recognized that people were human), the less disappointed I was at their short comings.
5. Keep a tight grip on your dreams- No matter how bad things seemed, I still tried to hold on to things I aspired to do in life. I had to have faith that it could happen one day.
6. Take risks (big or small)- Pushing myself to do things that scared the heck out of me, made a huge impact on my life.  I would have never known the feelings of accomplishment and satisfaction without taking the risk to begin with.
7. Be grateful- I started listing all the things I was thankful for. Small, silly things and then bigger things. This is still something I do each and every night.
And all this lead to the most valuable thing...
8. Self awareness- It's the thing that makes us stop and think for a second, "Am I being fair to myself right now?" or, "Are my expectations really realistic at this moment?"
In the end, this list had a major part in helping me. I hope that it's helpful for those who struggle with being too hard on themselves or striving to be perfect all the time.

Always,
Tova
TEENminded.com