Life Coaching Tip: Imperfection Is More Rewarding

Being a life coach I have been privileged to explore many inspiring and forever changing topics with you. Lets get started on todays journey.

For me there are a thousand and one messages in this short, powerful and insightful quote. Often we live our lives with an expectation of moving to achieving completeness. The practical outcome of this type of thinking is things like achieving 100%, no errors, complete happiness – you get the idea.

Lets take a moment and really imagine the implication of this. We identify a problem, something we don’t want and then we focus on eliminating it without pausing to understand the value it does bring to us. You might be thinking what possible value could a “problem / something negative” bring to us, well here are some ideas:

Having challenges teaches us endurance and patience. Without these qualities for instance if we are placed in a life threatening situation we will struggle to cope.

Experiencing sadness will for instance help us to know how it feels to be happy. Without being able to experience the opposite of something we literally have no ability to tell the difference.
Know the saying … This too shall pass? And when the challenge does, it allows you to feel a deep gratitude and appreciation for what you do have. Simply put if you never experienced the challenge the gratitude would never be as heartfelt.

Too often we become blind to possibilities, its like we become too focused to the point that we can’t see any other way of being and miss the opportunity of the present moment in favour of a future vision that probably will never materialise.

I’d like to challenge you to a rethink and explore and find ways of being happy even though things are not ideal, not 100% perfect, not going exactly the way you want.

How about we take this insight a step further and see how you can begin being your own “life coach”? Start with the following simple steps:

Try to list a couple perhaps 5 at the most of challenges you are currently facing.

1. What emotional impact are they causing you?
2. Spend sometime exploring what are your unmet expectations (this is normally the cause of the emotional impact)?
3. Try to change the expectations. Even just a tiny shift will help. See if you can move to a lighter place.
4. What solutions can you see now? Think of as many as you can.
5. How do you feel now about your challenges?

Step number 4 can be very powerful and generally difficult to start off with. Our expectations typically are quite firmly grounded in one or the other way, so generally black and white thinking / yes or no options. It will be difficult to see anything else. Just keep on checking yourself to see if you only see two ways of shifting the expectations and then keep gently challenging yourself to find another.

May your challenges be bountiful 🙂