I had an ah-ha moment the other day while reading a blog post on a weight loss site I’m on.
Expect imperfection.
It really hit me what that really meant. For some it might mean settling for less, but not for me.
When I expect perfection from myself, I inevitably fail. No one is perfect.
No. One.
So why should we expect it from ourselves? Why do we think we’re so awesome that we don’t make mistakes?
I haven’t blogged about this at all, but in 2012 I lost 22 pounds. I’ve lost weight before. 70 pounds ten years ago. Most of it found me again. When I decided to lose it this time, I promised myself many things.
-I wasn’t going to beat myself up when I fell off the wagon.
-I wasn’t going to quit when I fell off the wagon because I WAS going to fall off the wagon. Many times.
-I wasn’t going to let it stop me.
-I also wasn’t going to stop eating the foods I loved–I just wasn’t going to eat them all the time.
In other words, expect imperfection.
It worked for me and my weight loss. I’m at 23 pounds lost, hoping to lose four more so I’ll finally have a healthy BMI and a “normal” weight. No. Let me rephrase that. I’m not hoping to, I WILL lose four more pounds.
But then I started thinking about this motto, “expect imperfection”, in other aspects of my life. More specifically, in my writing.
As I writer, I expect perfection from myself. On the first draft. How silly is that? But what if I started expecting IMperfection on that first draft? What if I was, if not happy, content, with what I wrote the first time around?
What a freeing concept. And what a weight that’s been lifted from my shoulders, both literally and figuratively.
So my new motto for 2013: Expect imperfection.
sharonwritesromance.wordpress.com 
Great way to look at it Sharon…if you expect imperfection more than likely you are going to be happy with working toward your goals 🙂 Great advice! (And congrats on your weight loss…that’s a wonderful achievement!)
Great post, Sharon. I have to say though, I wish I could be pefect at something.
that’s very interesting, all right. Expect imperfection — I guess you could relate it to all aspects of your life, coudln’t you — being a mother, wife, friend maybe. That way, when you screw up (as inevitably happens) you won’t beat yourself up about it. Nice Sharon, thanks!
LOL you could relate it to writing ‘couldn’t’ as well 🙂
I really needed to read this today…thanks for sharing, Sharon. I’m going to adopt this motto for myself!
Great attitude, Sharon. It would be nice to be perfect at something, though.
LOL. Wouldn’t it be, Margery? I guess, what’s so freeing is that NO ONE is perfect at anything. Everyone makes mistakes. Just look at all those professional football players who didn’t make it to the play offs. LOL.
Congratulations, Sharon, and I love your attitude.
I also expect perfection from my first draft and that mindset is really harming my creativeness.
Brenda – It did the same for me. It was so bad that it was paralyzing me because I’d look at the page and know that what was going to come out wasn’t perfect, so I avoided it altogether. That doesn’t work well when you’re on a deadline or trying to actually earn money at this. So when I finally admitted that it wasn’t going to be perfect and that was ALL RIGHT, the creative juices came back.
Sorry I’m late… Great blog, Sharon. I totally agree about when I want prefection, I fail…