It Is Okay To Fail: Ditching Perfectionism

Do you have any flaws? If you answered no, you would be lying because everyone has them. Flaws are something everyone has yet doesn’t talk about because they can make us appear less than perfect and in our world we want to be seen as perfect. This is personified to us when we are children and only gets reinforced as we get older. Throughout our schooling years we are told we must study and get great grades so we can get into the perfect college. While we are in college, we are told we need to be our best person and should look our best so we can meet the perfect partner. After we met this perfect partner the list continues to strive to have the perfect house, perfect job, perfect kids and the list goes on. While it is okay to have goals and aspirations the problem is that perfection is a fallacy. There is not one thing on this earth that is perfect, yet on a daily basis we strive to be perfect and always fall short due to the inability to be perfect. Constantly striving to be perfect brings feeling of failure, self doubt, anxiety and depressive thoughts.

 I unfortunately have been struggling with the need to be perfect my whole life and while I am better than I used to be still find myself trying to attain perfection. The need comes from the desire to be the best version of yourself however a problem exists when you have already done your best and still blame yourself for your shortcomings. I remember in elementary school we used to have a pre-spelling test on Thursdays and if you spelled all of the words correctly you didn’t have to take the test on Friday. While I was not a terrible speller I always got at least one word incorrect and this caused me to have to take the test again while my friends got to play. At this point in my life I was about eight years old but the fact that I had to take the test again made me feel as if my classmates were smarter and better than me due to them simply being better at spelling. This is a terrible burden for an eight year old to hold, however I lived with it and carried it throughout my life to the point where I am finally fed up with self doubt and the need to be perfect. Self doubt and perfection causes us to constantly ask what we did wrong and how we can get it right next time. It causes us to blame ourselves for things which are completely out of our control. Finally, it destroys our spirit and causes us to carry around negative oppressive energy which eliminates the beauty of the world. This blog has no intention to make you feel sorry for me and the struggles that I have had in my life but rather to make you realize that perfection is impossible and that it is okay to make mistakes in life. You don’t have to ace every test, you are not expected to get your dream job out of college, and you don’t have to meet a life partner at a specific time period. It is okay to fail because it will make you learn who you are and how strong you are despite all of the obstacles in life. So next time you feel the desire to doubt yourself don’t because giving it your all is enough. Remember perfection is a fallacy and should be eliminated from our lives

Please enjoy the song Get it Right from Glee which personifies what happens when our desire to be perfect overrules our life

Peace Starts with Yourself and Grows

     Each and every day I love to surround myself with positivity. I always strive to find joy in each day even if it is simple as serving another with a good deed. Personally I love wall art that has inspirational sayings on them, one that I particularly love has the following saying: Peace Starts with Yourself and Grows. This is by far one of my favorite sayings because it is absolutely 100% true! Each and every day we wake up and we have a choice to make, either we can chose to be happy or we can chose to let outside forces and people control us.   


Growing up I unfortunately had the mindset that others controlled my destiny and I let other people get to me. For example I found myself commonly thinking that my own happiness or lack thereof was caused by others. This occurred for me commonly in middle school, a time where kids are extremely cruel, and as a kid you have no idea who you are. Reflecting back I put my search for happiness into the hands of others. My thoughts consisted of things like I would only be happy if the popular girls like me, or I would finally be happy if I was able to get all A’s.  This mindset continued into my high school years and into my college years as well. It was not until I started to serve others that I found this mindset was not true.  Peace and happiness are internal elements that WE create in our lives. If a person is constantly going through life with a mindset that they will one day find happiness the bottom line is they will never find it because happiness and peace are internal factors that we CHOOSE to bring in our lives. Peace comes from within ourselves and can be manifested by works that we do, but ultimately it is a choice we make each any every day. Remember you CAN find happiness and peace in your life, you just have to stop looking for it externally and rather look within yourself.     

Look for the “Positives” of Life

How many people always focus on the negatives in life rather than looking at positive elements? I know I am a culprit from time to time however as an unwritten resolution for 2014 I am trying to look at the positive elements in my life. For one, positivity this will allow a person to achieve a greater level of happiness in their day to day life. Additionally who wants to be a sad sack all of the time?  This morning I woke up and discovered that something I was planning on for a couple of weeks was switched around so that I had to change around my plans. Well the old me would have become really upset and sad for a little while. Did I do that? ABSOLUTELY NOT! Instead I dealt with my initial upset and then decided that I was going to see what I could do about it. After much thought I realized that this switch may actually benefit me and I decided to move on with the day.

                As one final hurrah before the start of the spring semester, my sister and I had lunch plans so we went to my favorite Thai place and we had a nice relaxing lunch. After that I wanted to show her the local trendy thrift shop and we decided to split up and find lots of cute clothes. In the store I immediately began finding lots of great deals on name brand clothes and accessories such as Nick and Mo, Forever 21, Nordstrom brands, as well as Coach.  To my surprise all of the items I was finding were ½ off the ticketed price which meant I would really save a lot of money! I basically got my items for $5 and under! This is AMAZING and I attribute it to my positive look on the situation and the day. Who knows if I would be open to shopping if I continued being upset about the situation that I previously experienced earlier in the day.  

I would really like to challenge you to try to see the positives in your daily life as you really will see that it pays off in the long run.  Remember smile each day and try to bring a little bit of sunshine to the people around you it really will pay off!   

Be Who YOU Want to Be

What do you want to accomplish in your life? Perhaps you have had a dream since you were little. Or you could have changed your mind multiple times much like I did. If I think back to my childhood animals were always a fond part of my life and I always had at least one pet. Therefore I thought I wanted to be a veterinarian during my elementary school years. Time went by and middle school came along and by this time I fell in love with the theater, I performed in plays and skits during my middle school years and right along in to my high school years.  However by this time I was on a mission to get done with school as fast as I could. I was taking college night classes after my high school classes and it turned out that the classes I was taking was paving my way toward a psychology degree. Did I want to be a psychologist not particularly but I thought “hey why not I already have all of these classes so let’s go with it” Fast forward to 2011 and BOOM I am a college graduate and I thought to myself what do I do now?

I am not going to lie this time was particularly hard for me because I had no idea what to do. My whole life at that point was defined upon the amount of time it took me to complete college. I graduated community college in 1 yr and UCLA a year and a half early. Although I accomplished this I really had no idea what to do next and the successful feeling I thought I was going to have was extremely short lived. During this time I thought back to my roots and thought about my love of helping people. I get a great sense of accomplishment and joy in my heart when I help another human being no matter how small the task is. Nursing was always a thought in the back of my mind but I thought it would be too hard for me. Although I was still scared I decided that I would give it a shot. As I mentioned before this time was extremely hard for me because I did not know who I was and where I was going in my life. Although I was an accelerated college graduate I didn’t really feel that accomplished.

 Looking back my mistake at this time was looking to others and comparing my current life status to theirs. Things that were extremely trivial were hard to deal with such as others getting engaged, moving in together or things that establish your independent status in life. It is extremely laughable now considering I was pretty much 20 at the time! Barely out of my teenage years yet I wanted to have a “adult life”. 

I was constantly thinking where am I going? Who am I? I knew at this time I was committed to my nursing prerequisites however this is all basic sciences and is just “good to know” background knowledge therefore I was not extremely happy with this waiting period. I wanted direction in my life but I proceeded with my prerequisites for a long year and a half. During this time although I was obtaining A’s in all of my classes I was constantly competing for the “better grade” with my peers. I always got A’s but I wanted to get a “better” A than my peers. I guess I was programmed to do this while I was at UCLA as you are fighting for your grades so I always wanted to go the best in the class.

Perhaps the time that I truly started to find myself was when I was accepted into my graduate school and was done with my prerequisites.  This was the beginning of the time I really found myself. I had just gotten into my first choice school and at the time I did not have any additional classes to take. My life was finally back on a “future” track where I knew I was going.  Fast forward to August of 2013 and I started nursing school, I was so excited yet nervous at the same time. I have always have had a hard time making new friends so I was worried about this however little did I know I did not need to worry about this at all. 

 

 

In my nursing program I can honestly say I have found the most honest, genuine, and kind people I have ever met. Each and every person is special to me and I love seeing my classmates day in and day out. We really are a family and I know we can get through this program with the help of each other. I am so happy and blessed.

The long drawn out message of this post it to not worry about impressing others and to just be yourself. During emerging adulthood I have discovered that we love to compare ourselves to others and often times we feel bad about ourselves if we have not accomplished a set amount of life goals that others have. DON’T DO THIS it will only bring you unnecessary anger and hurt that you are not at the “point” you want to be in your  life, instead embrace your success and what you have achieved in your life. Be who YOU want to be. It may take longer than you expect, however if you stick to it you can achieve all that you want to be.