“Shouldn’t I be done by now?”

This is a question I get asked A TON!

Sometimes this question is related to age. Many students I’ve worked with hold a long held belief that they should have “arrived” in their life by a certain age – most often that age is somewhere between the mid-twenties and mid-thirties and almost always they are at their finish line age when they call me because they still feel lost or stuck.

Even more often this question is asked because the student has been working on themselves for a really long time and is finding that new hurdles keep arising.

This is how we feel when we approach our spiritual practice or self help journey from a place of viewing ourselves, or a specific part of our life or personality, as broken. 

It feels like if only we could get a handle on our bodies, food, finances, relationship drama, parent drama, or career focus…everything would fall into place.

We commit to a path, or take elements of a few and make our own, and we do the work. Things do start to get better and the element that we are focused on “fixing” does seem to improve. For a while we may feel like we are sailing smooth, then a new issue pops up and we feel broken again.

It’s like a game of personal growth whack-a-mole. 

When we approach our spiritual practice or self help journey with an end goal of perfection we are missing the point.

The practice isn’t about fixing what’s broken, it’s about uncovering the truth that we are already whole. 

Recently, I was talking with my friend Krista Block about the importance of learning to fall. She teaches an entire workshop on the topic. (Find more of her here.)

I tend to encourage the students who come to my yoga classes to work their edges, to play with balance, and sometimes – to fall over. I ask them to ask themselves:

• Where they are playing safe?
• Where they are pushing from the ego?
• Where are they attached to the outward appearance more then the inward experience?
• Where are they are leaning in to purify, grow, and expand?

These questions apply just as much off the mat.

Just as yoga isn’t about perfectly holding peacock feather pose, personal growth isn’t about arriving in a place where we no longer have struggle or work to do. 

It’s a process and a practice. There will always be more uncovering and polishing to do.

When we let go of our perfectionism around our process and start approaching ourselves and our experience with massive curiosity we get free.

Now I want to hear from you.

Leave a comment below and let me know what one action can you take today to move out of perfectionism and into curiosity in your life?

I’d love to get a good conversation happening here, perhaps it can start with you.

As always, if you enjoyed this essay I’d so greatly appreciate your sharing it. Click on the social icons to the left to do so.

While you’re here be sure to check out the “freely offered classes” tab for a twenty minute yoga class and guided loving kindness meditation – my gift to you.

Much love,

Katie