Category Archives: Perfect

Being Perfectly You is Key to Getting the Body You Want

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Self Love

 

“I have to have a perfect body, or I won’t be beautiful.”

“I have to diet and exercise perfectly, or I’ve blown it.”

“I have to be perfect, or people won’t love me or I won’t’ be a success.”

Feeling like you have to be and do things perfectly or you are a “failure” is a common attribute of the women with whom I work.

Perfection is an expectation that can never be met. The stress of trying to fulfill this unmeetable expectation can be a serious blow to your wellness—and weight loss efforts.

If you think about it, life would actually get pretty boring if you were perfect.

You would never learn anything, get to challenge yourself or grow. It would be as if everything in the world were yellow. And while you may love yellow, you appreciate it so much more if there’s a little blue, pink, or green thrown in for some contrast.

Your body is your body. Its curves and shape are uniquely you. Its size and contours are different from everyone else on the planet. It is that uniqueness that makes you beautiful, not your conformity.

What is optimal for your body will be different from everyone else. While using another’s body to inspire you to meet your goals can be a useful tool, if you are comparing your body and finding fault or reason to criticize yourself, you are actually doing harm to you, your body, and are unknowingly sabotaging your weight-loss goals.

Seeing where you aren’t perfect is an opportunity.

Engaging in the process of figuring out what you do want, what you are doing right, determining what is optimal for you, and valuing how you are unique will help you harness the powers of the Universe to work for you, rather than keep you stuck in the rebound weight-gain cycle.

This is how you begin to sculpt and create the body—and life—you want. You reach for the body and life that is uniquely you.

This is where the fun is! This is having a life that is vibrant and fulfilling.

Let go of the need to be perfect. Let go of feeling like you should already be at your goal. Just jump in exactly where you are.

What is optimal for you? Who are you when you are at your optimal weight and are experiencing optimal wellness? How will that help you be more uniquely you?

Move towards that. Engage in that. Have fun doing that.

This is life! This is thriving! This is creating the body—and life—you really want.

Together we can do it!

Time is Running Out!

Join the the Love Your Way Slim Coaching Program today! 

This unique program transforms your mindset, integrates your core values and spiritual beliefs, provides exceptional support, and hones in on the most powerful actions you can take to make releasing the weight not only easy and satisfying—but fun! (Yes, it really is possible!)

FIND OUT MORE HERE

Program closes Saturday. It won’t open again until January 2014!

 

http://loveyourwayslim.com/coaching-program/

 

You Are Perfect in Your Imperfection

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Last night, my fabulous coach, Kendra Thornbury, and I diagnosed some lurking perfectionitis.

This is the need to do everything perfectly.

Not only has perfectionitis been a significant contributor to my past struggles with my weight, but I see the majority of the women I work with suffering from it, as well.

It often shows up as the need to do a diet and exercise program perfectly, or you might as well give up. Not only is that unrealistic, it’s exhausting. And it means that one mistake can sabotage months’ worth of progress.

In my case, it’s showing up as the feeling that I need to be perfect in order to be successful at business—and be credible to you fabulous clients and readers.

And my reaction to this diagnosis was pretty text-book. “Seriously? I thought I had gotten rid of all that!”

Not very tolerant or supportive of myself, eh?

Ah, the self-development work never ends! And you know what? It’s not supposed to.

Because we are all perfect in our imperfection.

So for the record:

I’m totally and completely imperfect AND I’m awesome.

My body is imperfect AND I’m beautiful.

My eating is imperfect AND I’m healthy and slim.

I’m self-critical AND I love and appreciate myself.

I’ve created a life that I love AND there’s room to make it even better.

Once again, I remind myself of what I know.

There is no “one right way” to do anything. By being more tolerant and supportive of yourself, you help lift the “all or nothing” requirement for success—for any goal.

By giving yourself some relief from perfectionitis, you more easily and consistently move towards the best possible version of you—which is an every changing mark.

I’m reinstating my personal “No Regrets” policy. This gives me the ability to start each day with a fresh opportunity to do the very best I can.

And I encourage you to implement your own “No Regrets” policy.

All it requires is for you to shift your focus from all the things you didn’t do “right” to all the things that you did do that are moving you towards your goals. To give yourself credit for those things. To celebrate those things. And to start each day with a fresh opportunity to do the very best you can, and to celebrate those actions.

It does take practice, but fortunately you don’t have to be perfect!

Together we can do it!

 

Woo Hoo! You Aren’t Perfect!

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Many women I work with are squeezed between feeling the need to be perfect and judging themselves harshly for not being perfect.

Wow it’s a painful place to be.

And so not necessary.

I love the Dan Millman quote:

“You began life with a natural, complete sense of worth. (Have you ever met an infant with self-worth issues?) But as you grow, you serve as your own judge, deducting points when you misunderstand the nature of living, and learning—when you forget you are a human-in-training and that making mistakes and having slips of integrity and mediocre moments are a part of life, not unforgivable sins.”

I would go further. Not only is being imperfect not an unforgivable sin, it’s vital to living a full, happy, and authentic life.

Often when I ask clients to list their gifts or positive attributes, they struggle or can’t do it. But ask them for self-criticism or the perceived judgments of others and they can give you a page.

From the time you were born, you begin trying to please many masters—parents, teachers, friends, society, God, etc., etc. This would be OK if they were asking the same thing from you, but the message is inconsistent. To please your parents you have to say and be one way. To please your teachers, you have to say and be another. Your friends yet another.

And people still don’t like you and criticize you. You begin to think, “Maybe if I contort myself this way or that way they will love me.” You begin striving to meet this ever-changing target of perfection that will make everyone else happy.

Is it any wonder that you can’t be perfect?

In the process of contorting yourself, you lose Who you are—what you actually enjoy, what you’re good at, what you love.

By trying to be perfect, you may stop at the first hint of criticism. If you do push forward, your self-imposed rigidity my suck all the fun out. Life becomes hard. More often then not, you give up on achieving your goals and do what’s easier–what you know you can do perfectly.

I’m pulling your mask away. I see you and you aren’t perfect. You aren’t hiding the fact that you aren’t perfect from anyone. And you are so loved and worthy just as you are. You don’t need to please anyone else. You don’t need to be anyone else. In fact, the world is hungry for the true you.

I see you for Who you truly are—absolutely and totally perfect in your imperfection.

How do you expect to expand, change, and evolve if you are already perfect? And you can’t help but expand, change, and evolve. It is boxing yourself in and trying to limit yourself to playing in the narrow lines of perfection that is at the heart of your pain and unhappiness.

Growth comes from playing, learning, trying, and being. So relax. Ease up on yourself—and others. Play more. Be willing to learn more. Be willing to try and have the results be less than perfect. Let go of doing more and focus on being more.

Can you feel the relief in that? Can you feel the path to joy in that? Can you see the way to being Who you truly are?

Together we can do it!