You know Miss Perfect. She dresses impeccably, not a hair out of place, when she drives her perfect kids to a perfect school. She volunteers there several days a week, holds down a perfect full time job, and always has dinner on the table when her perfect husband gets home from work. Her perfect dog sits quietly in her perfect purse. She sends out darling Christmas cards with pictures of her perfect family, every year, on time.

Perfection is her legacy, so nothing that matters ever happens.

Now meet me. I’m probably more like most of the people you know. You would never notice what I wear. When I volunteer at my daughter’s school, I never get dinner on the table. Our family hasn’t sent a Christmas card out in three years, but keep meaning to! My dog is a cross between Marmaduke and Scooby Doo and has destroyed most of my carpeting running away from our crazy cats every day. My life is far from perfect and I couldn’t have wished for anything better.

10 Reasons to Boycott Perfection

1. Perfect people are boring.
2. Perfect people are tired.
3. Perfect people are anxiety ridden.
4. Perfect people are passionless.
5. Perfect people are obsessive.
6. Perfect people are not spontaneous.
7. Perfect people are too precise to be forgiving.
8. Perfect people are too exhausted to be grateful.
9. Perfect people are not good with change.
10. Perfect people are not perfect.

When perfection is your goal, regardless of what you are doing or being, you miss what you set out to do, or be in the first place.

Six places to boycott perfection

• Art In writing, photography or anything you are producing creatively, perfection will slow you down or even stop you from sharing your work. Make it good, but boycott perfection.

• Body Nothing you do will give you a perfect body until you learn to love what you have. Sure, you can firm things up, but in most cases, what you see is what you get. Keep your body healthy, but boycott perfection.

• Diet You might be eating lean for the perfect body, so now that you’ve given that dream up, eat to nourish. Eat for pleasure. If you overeat, move on and move more. Pay attention to what you eat, but boycott perfection.

• Blog If you are waiting for the perfect time to launch a blog, or take your blog to the next level, it might never happen. So what if you don’t have 50 posts waiting in the wings. So what if you don’t know what a widget is. Ask for help.

• Parenting Attempting to parent perfectly screws kids up. You aren’t perfect and no matter what you do, your kids won’t be perfect either. Love and protect them. Forgive them and teach them. Raise them up to contribute to the world. Then, love them some more.

• Life If you are waiting until things are perfect to make your next big move in life, I am here to tell you, that the perfect time is now. You might have some planning to do. You might have to pay off debt first, or find a new job, or take time to create a Smalltopia. Whatever it is that is standing between you and living the life you’ve been dreaming about, take care of it. It doesn’t have to be pretty or fast, but make it soon.

There is no perfection in minimalism

If the minimalist lifestyle of living with less appeals to you, do it your way. Some would have you believe that if you don’t live like them, you’re an idiot. Because I don’t think you’re an idiot, I don’t need to remind you that this is your life. It is going to look different than mine. While I hope I can offer inspiration and a glimpse into minimalism, I won’t be disappointed if you take away what works for you and leave the rest.

It’s not reasonable to measure the success of your life and how you choose to live it by comparing it to anyone else.

Instead of looking for exactness and perfection, look for inspiration.

I  have a great yoga teacher who sends a newsletter out each week with a theme for yoga classes and life in general. My favorite message to date was last week when he quoted a Leonard Cohen Song:

“Ring the bells that still can ring.

Forget your perfect offering.

There is a crack in everything,

That’s how the light gets in.”

Without perfection, you can still do great work, have good hair days, and really enjoy and be grateful for your life. The only difference is, you might do it faster, be less critical of yourself and others, and offer something meaningful to yourself, your family and the world.

Challenge yourself to find the beauty in imperfection.

My message to you is…boycott perfection. Forget about being the best. Forget about the competition. Let go, and let the light in.