The Japanese Kintsugi method repairs broken pottery with gold, highlighting the imperfections proudly and boldly and creating beautiful and interesting pieces.

I love this idea and was wondering how to use this metaphor in my life.

Instead of hiding away my imperfections what would happen if I let them out, on display for all to see? Maybe even show them off? I’m not perfect! Who is?! 

I have super high expectations of myself and put myself under a lot of pressure to be perfect in whatever I set out to do. While it’s not bad to have high standards, being realistic about the targets we set for ourselves is important. As is the way we react if we fail to meet these targets. 

What does perfection actually mean? Looking it up in the dictionary it says very little; “the state or quality of being perfect” and similar words are ‘excellence’, ‘magnificence’ and ‘flawlessness’.

I don’t expect myself or anyone else to be flawless or magnificent! However I do have high expectations of myself and I am wondering where this is coming from. So I started looking at internal and external influences.

Magazines, TV, instagram and those apps which make people look flawless… they can be a lot of fun. For a few years (yes, years!) I kept my social media accounts active because I had a case of FOMO (fear of missing out).

Then I started realising that all I got out of seeing everyone else’s ‘perfect’ lives, happy days and perfect smiles was a sense of failure - while I had spent the day doing washing and stopping the children's argument my friends had had a perfect day. I have stopped much of my personal social networking interactions because seeing all this perfection actually made me feel pretty bad about myself.

When I considered why it’s important to me to be ‘perfect’ I realised that I thrive on being told I’ve done a good job, and therefore I push myself with the goal to be given praise. Whilst this was appropriate when I was six, now that I’m an adult I wanted to retrain my understanding of praise and remind myself that my own opinion is good enough.

I still aim to do a good job, but I am learning to ‘dial down’ my expectations of myself, and be happy with my own judgement. I look at my imperfections with curiosity and consider what would be so bad about being OK with them - perhaps I’m not quite ready to cover them in gold like the Kintsugi but I will still let them shine through and be part of my personality every day. 

If you enjoyed this blog you might find my other blogs Silencing Your Inner Critic and Tell Your Brain What to Think interesting too.