A mantra practice for loosening the harsh judgements we hold about ourselves. Excellence is worth pursuing. Perfection was never on offer.
Listen to the Meditation
About This Practice
Perfectionism looks like high standards from the outside. From the inside it is a standard set where it cannot be met, which guarantees that whatever you do falls short of it.
The beliefs underneath are usually familiar ones. I am not good enough. I should already know this. If I get it wrong, that says something permanent about me. Each is stated with total certainty and almost never examined.
This is a mantra practice, which means you repeat a phrase gently and often. That works because repetition is how beliefs were built in the first place. The ones you carry now were laid down by experiences that happened again and again, and deliberate repetition works on the same mechanism.
The phrases here address perfectionism directly: releasing the need to be perfect, releasing the need to know everything in order to count as capable, and building trust in your own abilities.
Choose phrases you can partly believe. A mantra you flatly reject will not take, because certainty cannot be installed by assertion. Aim for the next reasonable step rather than the destination.
Micro Practice: Three Breaths
When you catch yourself falling short of an impossible standard, take three breaths.
- Breathe and settle on the breath itself.
- Breathe and say: I am good enough.
- Breathe and say: I trust myself and my abilities.