Perfectly Imperfect by Annabel Howarth

“I am perfectly imperfect.”  That is my new mantra.  It has taken me 41 years to reach this point of being.  It is so enlightening and uplifting and is helping me feel happier and more confident in every aspect of my life, including my writing.

I always enjoyed writing stories and poems from an early age, and in those early days without any fear of whether I was “good enough” to call myself a writer.  It is what I did and what I loved.  I always dreamed of being like Jo from Little Women.  Why then did I change my original path and pursue a career in law instead?  

At some point in my childhood I remember my Dad saying “Nothing is worth doing if you don’t do it well.”  To put it in context, he was talking about cleaning the wooden floor in our living room.  He was dissatisfied with what he called my “port hole cleaning”.  As is the way with children, I took that on board as a message for how I should be in everything I did.  In recent years I have learned a little about “mindfulness” and similar practices, and come across the thinking of Eckhart Toller.  It has helped me conclude that in my subconscious I came up with the idea that “I am a perfectionist” and nothing less than perfection was good enough.  

Although I continued to enjoy writing throughout school and beyond, I recall thinking at the time when I had to make decisions about university, that I only wanted to be a writer if I knew I could do it brilliantly well.  I wanted to write the sort of work I was studying in my English Literature classes.  Nothing less would do.  The writer I wanted to be was a future self.  In the meantime I would pursue what I thought would be a more lucrative career to enable me to reach that future self.

In a nutshell, there was my stumbling block to becoming a writer: my past self that had defined me as a perfectionist, and my dream of an unattainable future self that had to be a prize winning literary novelist.  In my subconscious I had convinced myself that I was not good enough to be a writer.

Fortunately, I have had my epiphany.  A few years ago I attended a therapy session called The Journey (originated by Brandon Bays).  It revealed to me for the first time this subconscious idea I had that “I am not good enough”.  It was an astonishing revelation to me, but it all made sense.  In my rational adult head I knew that it was a nonsense idea, but just acknowledging this subconscious blocker meant I felt free to feel “good enough” in many aspects of my life.  In my writing in particular, it gave me the confidence to join a writing course.  I never imagined that over three years later it would remain a regular part of my life.  I never before imagined having the confidence to read my work out to other writers.

Letting go of perfectionism, has taken a little longer.  For someone to want to pay for my work, it would have to be perfect wouldn’t it?  Of course “perfection” is unattainable.  Everything can always be improved upon.  Every artist has to reach a point where they put their name on the canvas.  Every author has to reach a point where they put down their pen and send their work off for consideration.  One of the law partners I worked for once said that the document I was drafting didn’t need to be perfect.  The client didn’t need something which was perfect, they just needed it to work.  Of course, back then, I didn’t agree.  I didn’t see how it could work if it was not perfect.  Nothing is “perfect” in that sense though.  An orange is more or less a sphere, but it is not a perfect sphere.  Every orange is different, but it works as an orange, and its imperfection is what makes it beautiful and interesting.

To anyone who has a longing to write but is somehow afraid to, I recommend you get your head in the right place as soon as possible.  Find out what is causing your blockers and free yourself to follow your dream.  Always remember we are all perfectly imperfect.  Live in the present and, don’t worry about it,  just write and enjoy it.  

Annabel Howarth

Recommended reading:

Becoming a Writer - Dorothea Brande

The Power of Now - Eckhart Tolle