This week I’ve been thinking a lot about the idea of imperfection and accepting the fact that I am very much imperfect. It’s stupid hard. I would much prefer to be perfect. I would much rather that everything be easy, that my body would look exactly how I want it to (see Tuesday’s post…), that I would have the exact career I want, that I would look at my life and go, ahhhh, perfect. I’ve also realized that this is the perception of my life that I have created. It is my perception that the way I look, or the things I do or the choices I have made are not perfect. 

Life typically doesn’t look perfect because perfection is an illusion. The imperfections we see in ourselves and other people are what make us all beautiful and interesting. The stories of how people got to where they are, aren’t usually cut and dry, nor are they usually pursuits of perfection. 

I grew up my whole life believing I would end up on Broadway. BROADWAY (sung very loudly on a very high note). To me, that was the ultimate life. I rehearsed and took every lesson under the sun to make sure that by the time I graduated college I would be ready to move to New York and pursue my career as an actress. I would get cast in an amazing show, find my prince and life would be ideal every day. The day I left for college I was already prepared for the next step, but as I spent more time in college I started to realize a few things. 1) I don’t particularly like living in the snow and 2) I didn’t really want to live in New York. Well, that put a gigantic wrench in my perfect plan. I love visiting New York, but I could tell that New York wasn’t my home. 

Los Angeles is my home. My whole family is here and when I graduated college my Daddy was away at “mandatory adult summer camp” and I just wanted to be back where I grew up and near my fam. Because of this nasty wrench in my fully-laid-out plan I moved back to LA and lived at home for a while. On this imperfect detour back to LA I met and started dating this intern named Dominic at my parents’ real estate company. I started working for the same company part-time so that I would be able to support myself while I was auditioning and part-time turned into full-time and dating that intern turned into marriage and starting two companies together. Working together showed me that I can do anything I set my mind to and also how not meant for the business world I am. Figuring that out turned into me starting to write a book, starting a blog and figuring out how to have a career as a speaker. My perfect plan? No idea where that went, but this series of very much unplanned detours lead me to where I am now, ahhhh beautiful and sometimes very complicated.

Striving for perfection makes me insane. I mess up. All. The. Damn. Time. And I get mad at myself for all of these stupid mess-ups. And then I think, but wait, so many things that I have seen as mistakes or changes in dreams have lead me to the beautiful and complicated and imperfect place I am in now. I am learning the lessons I am on this planet to learn in an imperfectly wonderful way. 

So, here’s what I think. Living an imperfect life is what life is. There will be tough times and there will be times with unfathomable joy and all of those times are brilliant in their own way. There is no perfect time. There is no perfect anything. It just is what it is. There is prayer, hope and faith that most journeys will be pleasant ones, but even those that aren’t lead you to where you are so imperfectly and stunningly situated. There will come times where you have to make changes in your life, but when you do so don’t strive for perfection, strive for the things that makes you feel good in your heart. Just one good-feeling thing at a time. If it doesn’t work out there is likely some incredible lesson to learn. It’s not a failure, it’s a trial of imperfection. Being true to yourself is the goal. Learning is the goal. Enjoying life no matter what it looks like is the goal.

Perfection is saying “once everything looks a certain way I will be happy.” And that is a lie your mind will tell you over and over and over because you can achieve goals, still not be happy and still be looking for something else, for something more. It will never feel perfect, but you can feel accomplished and excited and empowered to continue on your journey. Beautiful imperfection is my goal. Creating the life of my dreams is a life of one good-feeling thing after the next. That’s what I’m after. And so far, it feels pretty damn perfect.

Happy weekend friends!! Xoxox 

PS I edited this post about a million times today because it’s not perfect and it wasn’t coming off the way I wanted it to. I was so aggravated and then went…oh that’s funny…guess it’s okay that it’s not perfect too…