Bravery, not perfection.
SO here’s my lesson lately: BRAVERY, NOT PERFECTION.
It’s been a slow burn for me. All the powers of the universe have been priming my heart and my ears for this one. I was listening to Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard (close friends know I don’t ever shut up about three different podcasts - this is one of them) and he was interviewing Reshma Saujani. Her story is amazing, so if you’re interested in a woman who supports other women, works to build up future generations, and has learned the value in failing forward, just stop reading now and go listen to that episode.
For those of you still reading, here’s why this podcast episode mattered to me (and why I hope it helps you). As a girl and young woman, my value came from being mature, polite, well-behaved, well-groomed, a straight-A student, etc. It’s how I earned love, attention and praise from those around me. Naturally, perfectionism became #goals.
I knew of two paths in life: the one that led to success/changing the world/love/happiness, and the other one *shudder*. I got to a place, especially academically or with hobbies, where it didn’t matter how long I spent working on something, if it didn’t come out like I had pictured, I was not only crushed, but questioning my identity and life goals (cut to me like two weeks ago making a bad batch of macarons for my mom’s store opening, telling myself that I’m a failure, that no one will spend money on things I make, especially sh***y things, that I should probably just stop trying and go crawl in a hole. Yeah, I’m really nice to myself.) Culturally, I didn’t (don’t) experience the emphasis on the process like I did (do) on the product. I feared anything that would land me on the other path, inadequacy being one of those things. Slowly but surely I became more and more afraid to TRY ANYTHING. (Am I hitting home with any of you, yet?)
I get that some of that is just real life - it doesn’t matter how long you practice an instrument, if you still can’t play a song people aren’t going to pay you to perform just because you tried. That’s fair. But my point and my question is this: How many musicians are out in the world, stuck deep inside of people, just because they’re too scared to try and potentially fail? How much do YOU have to offer the world that we may never know about because you’re not the best at the thing, so why bother? How many of you are cripplingly afraid that you won’t be perfect? How many of you actually are?
Reshma said multiple times that BRAVERY IS A MUSCLE. So even in sharing this post, I am working that muscle. I’m continuing to consciously create space for failure, to remove the stigma from that word, and to lean in to my experiences with failure that brought me where I am (financial failure that led me to drop out of school [move back to TN and eventually marry Matt], contraceptive failure that led to my daughter [aka the best thing that’s ever happened], western medicine failure that led to my being a doula [the job that I sincerely believe I was created for], and my high school English teacher’s failure [that led to my endless run-on sentence writing style]. The list goes on…). So go and read Reshma’s book, Brave, Not Perfect: Fear Less, Fail More, and Live Bolder. My copy comes in Friday. And if you want to get together and swap stories of the times you tried to trick the world into thinking you had it all together, let’s grab coffee. Or even better - let’s go try something new and be willing to suck at it.
SIDENOTE ABOUT THE HEADER PHOTO:
My face in this photo is hilariously metaphorical to me.
I was on a trip with my husband, trying to force myself to have photos taken, so I thought I’d do something silly. Jump like 4 feet down. And look at how trepidatious my facial expression is. Also I’m not even really willing to jump - just pretending that it’s one really big stair, I guess. I look at this photo through my narrative-self-lens and want to take that woman, shake her, and yell, “WHAT ARE YOU SO SCARED OF?” And then I picture little Katherine on that ledge and I want to ask the same thing, much more lovingly this time, and also cry a little. I’m so much more kind to little Katherine.