191 How to Leverage Imperfection to Get Direction

Hey, this is Anne with your Coaching on the Go.

In the spirit of liberating your fear, I want to talk with you about how boring perfectionism can be, and how boring perfection in general can be, and what a tightrope you can be walking.

The creative process is designed to be fun. 

It’s kind of like you’re at the window ordering exactly what you would like, and you’re there like a child, knowing that you can have anything.

You are looking up and you’re calling on your imagination and you’re licking your lips, because you can have anything you want. 

Being perfect keeps you from that energy of spontaneous asking – the energy behind creativity and imagination. 

So, I want to encourage you to think about this.

If you haven’t watched the movie Free Solo, Alex Honnold, he climbs up El Capitan with no ropes, and he talks about just being perfect for a moment in time. 

It can be fun to be perfect for a moment in time, like when you hit the culmination of your idea and you see it manifested. 

That’s a beautiful moment, but it’s done by that time. 

The energy of creating it, the challenge that your being got so engaged in during the process of creating is over, and hopefully by then you have a new task, a new challenge, a new idea that has sprung forth. 

And usually that starts happening before you have even finished what you’re working on, because one thing leads to the next.

My professor and mentor, Don Reitz, an incredible ceramic artist, when he looked inside of a kiln as he was taking the bricks out to unload it at the end of a firing, he would say, “Is it in there, that piece?” 

And what he would be talking about is the pinnacle piece, the perfect piece.

Is it in there?

He’s kind of hoping it is, but then he’s hoping it’s not, because his journey is over if he’s made the perfect thing. 

So I’m encouraging you today to embrace the imperfection, because it’s what asks you for solutions. 

It asks you for your next step. 

It invites you and entices you for more. 

A perfect person isn’t very interesting to be around, somebody who is perfect, because there are so many structures around that perfection.

To me, imperfectly perfect is what I shoot for. 

I like the differences in the situations I face. 

I like the differences and challenges that present themselves in each person that I meet, in each scenario that I come to. 

So instead of wishing away the challenge that you’re experiencing right now, that’s making you scared, I’m asking you to embrace all these variables that are calling you to the next size of your expansion as an infinite being of the universe.

This is a journey you came here for for a reason, it’s engaging. 

A lot of people look to retire and sit back on a recliner in front of the television, when they are at the peak of who they have become so far in life. 

So I’m happy you’re here and I want to encourage you to just continue to gain different perspectives on challenge, and turn them around in your favor and really embrace the gift of the challenge, and the gift of the fear, and your ability to step through it and become bigger and more fascinating every day.

Have a beautiful day.