Perfectly I’mPerfect, Unfiltered & Unapologetic: How Flaws Make Us Stronger

Summary

In this episode, Layla Dawn discusses the concept of perfectionism and how it can hinder personal growth and happiness. She emphasizes the importance of embracing one's flaws and imperfections as strengths rather than weaknesses. Through her own experiences with procrastination and the pressure to be perfect, Layla shares insights on authenticity, the value of realness in communication, and the necessity of taking action despite fears of imperfection. The conversation encourages listeners to focus on progress over perfection and to celebrate their unique journeys.

Takeaways

Embracing flaws can lead to greater authenticity.

Perfectionism is an illusion that can hinder progress.

Real success comes from being true to oneself.

Mistakes are opportunities for learning and growth.

It's okay to not have everything figured out.

Taking imperfect action is better than inaction.

Celebrate small wins and progress.

Surround yourself with positive influences.

Your imperfections make you relatable and human.

Focus on progress over perfection in all areas of life.

Chapters

00:00 Embracing Imperfection: The Illusion of Perfection

08:03 The Journey of Authenticity and Learning

17:45 Resilience Through Flaws and Mistakes

27:43 Celebrating Progress Over Perfection

Links
Do Life Website

www.layladawndoeslife.com

Certified Life and Business Coaching

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LinkedIn

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Transcript

0:00

Hey, so you know that thing that you've been trying to hide? flaws, the mistakes, the so-called imperfections. Did you know that those are actually your greatest strengths? We live in a world that tells us to strive for perfection. But what if real success, real happiness, real confidence comes from embracing your flaws? Embracing your messy, unpolished, perfectly imperfections. Today we're breaking down the illusion of perfection and embracing the power of being authentically you. So let's get into it. Hi friends, welcome to the podcast. am your host Life Coach Layla and today we're going to be talking about something that I think we all kind of struggle with a little bit. And that is perfectionism. The struggle to have everything perfect, to know everything, to have everything planned out. It's exhausting. and the pressure we put on ourselves is so unnecessary. But the truth is... Perfectionism is really an illusion and it's our imperfections, our mistakes that make us real and authentic. It took me four years to make this podcast. First of all, that's ridiculous. It shouldn't take anybody four years to do something that they've decided they want to do. They should be able to just do it, but we're not going to get into executive dysfunction right now. What I want to say is the reason it took me four years to make this podcast is because I thought I needed to be perfect. I needed to know all of the things. I needed to have the best equipment. I needed to have the best lighting, the best sound, the best editing software and the skills and the knowledge and a producer and a blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I needed none of those things. You know what I needed to do? I needed to just start. I needed to just start making a podcast. and learn as I go along because I have been doing this for six months now and in the six months that I have been actually making episodes and recording and doing the things, I have learned a hundred times more than I did in four years of stalling and procrastinating and learning because everything I learned went right out the window when I didn't do anything. So the implementation is really what helped me learn. and get over my fear of being perfect. If you look at my first episodes, hell, even this episode isn't perfect. The lighting's not ideal. I'm probably too close to my face. I don't have a producer. I'm just constantly rambling about things. The fact that you guys show up and listen to me is pretty awesome, actually. So thank you for being here. But yeah, there's a lot of flaws in my podcast. And if you look at the very first episode I posted to today, even though today's still not perfect because there's no such thing, it's better. It's better than the first episode I put out. Every episode I've done has gotten a little bit better. I've learned something new. I've learned something different. I've made a lot of mistakes along the way and I don't always edit those out because those are what make me human and we embrace them. There's a lot of things I do edit out. Don't let me act like I don't. But for the most part, like you just get the real authentic version of me. I'm I try not to be too scripted. I try not to be overly analytical or scientific. Like if it seems like I'm reading something, I know you guys will lose interest. And I've gotten a lot more feedback that you guys like stories. So I try to incorporate personal stories into my messages because that genuinely helps remember the message and the idea more so. So what I want to say is that it's okay to be perfect. It's okay not to be perfect. and this, it's kind of funny that I picked this title for this episode because last July, June, I think it was June, it was sometime last summer, 2024, I was an author in a compilation of authors and a book called Perfectly I'm Perfect. And I'm not plugging the book or anything I make zero dollars off of it unless you buy it from me directly. if you wanted to go read the chapter, I really talk about how I grew up being not perfect and knowing that I wasn't perfect and how it took me a long time to embrace imperfections and no matter how good I think I am at being okay with not being perfect something else shows up and it's like you're actually not okay with not being perfect because you haven't done this thing over here yet. I'm getting ready to launch a couple courses and do a few things and these are things that I've been thinking about doing for months and months and haven't done because of, I need to learn everything, I need to do the things, I need to figure everything out. No, I need to just do the thing and not worry so much about being perfect, I need to just do it. And you know what? It's okay if it's not perfect. I can learn from that and I can redo it or I can do another one and do it better. And I'm not going to take four years to do these things. Like it took me to make this podcast. So I'm getting better at deciding to do the thing once I make a decision to do the thing and not letting fear of imperfections hold me back. And I think this is why this is such a good episode because I see so many people with such amazing ideas and they've got these great thoughts and theories and things and messages that they could bring to the world. But because they're so stuck in this fear of failure or imperfection that they never launched in the first place, that nobody gets to hear their message. And I try to explain to them that getting their message to one person is more important than looking perfect for the rest of the people that aren't necessarily going to receive your message the way that you want them to. If they're busy judging your imperfections, they're not receiving the overall message that you want to display. And that's kind of what gets me through some of these not so great episodes is the fact that I know that if I'm talking to one person, and that one person finds value in my message, then great. That's what I'm here for. I'm here. I'm talking to you. I'm talking to the one person that needs to hear me tell them it's okay to not be perfect, to embrace your flaws. They make us human. You as a listener, love it more when you're listening to someone who's being real and authentic. And when they make mistakes and screw up, you're like, they're human like me. So many times people put, like musicians and actors and actresses on these pedestals, like they're these godlike creatures that can do no wrong. I just, I've never done that. I've never felt like that. I've never, I've never seen them as anything other than people. And the ones who pretend that they are perfect are the ones that I feel are so fake and I don't resonate and I don't want anything to do with them because that's... I pride myself on keeping it real. Like, let's be honest, like that's my M.O. That's what I do. And I just think that so many people are so worried about what other people think of them that they're afraid to be themselves. And people aren't going to land with you. They're not going to resonate with you. If I came in here and I was like, Hi guys, welcome to my podcast. Today's going to be an amazing day. You guys would be like, what? What is this person? It's so fake and you can see right through it. And I don't know, maybe you would like that. Maybe I should be a little more animated and chipper, but no. I'm me, I'm here and I'm doing the thing as me because I can't keep up with that if we're being honest. Like I can't pretend to be super hyper and chipper and overly animated and extra. all of the things and then I meet you in person and I'm me and you're like, this isn't the same person that I've been following. I feel lied to. I feel like I've been had and that's not what I want to happen either. So you get, you get what you get. Like this is, this is me. You can talk to anybody who's friends with me or even if you're a friend with me, like you hear me on the podcast. I'm not any different than if I'm sitting here having coffee with you face to face. And that's what I want my message to feel like. I want to feel like a friend that's just having a conversation with you and like, I'm excited about this thing that I learned or this thing I figured out or, I've had several friends come to me with the same problem. And I feel like you could benefit from this information too. And that's the kind of conversations that we're having. And that's the kind of podcast that I deliver. So, um, Do I want to be perfect? Yes. Do I understand that that's not real? Yes. Do I deliver content regardless of how I feel about it, even though it's never up to my standards? Yes. Because I feel like getting my message out there is more important than being perfect. So let's talk about how embracing our imperfections can make us beautifully human and authentic and relatable. So we've talked about, you know, like the myth of perfection in media, not just actors and musicians, but even social media. Like you get perfectly edited, filtered photos and beautiful sceneries and people missing from them. And I love the trend on Instagram now where it's like, Instagram. real life and you can see the differences between the pictures that are posted on Instagram and then what the experience to get those pictures is really like because I think it just humbles a lot of situations. People want to go to these beautiful destinations and then they think they're going to get to this reclusive place that nobody knows about and they get there and there's five gazillion people there that are all waiting in line to take this perfect picture of serene beauty and it's just all fake and none of it's real because That's not real life, what you see on the internet. It's just not. I had a buddy of mine who met this girl online and thought he was getting catfished because he didn't believe it was the same girl. But when they met, she didn't have the filters and the filters were so drastically different that he almost didn't even recognize her when they met up. and that's just the same thing with like. like pretending to be somebody that you're not. It's just a filter. It's a face filter. It's a personality filter. And I know a lot of people that they're afraid to be their real selves. They're afraid to be authentic because they don't want to be vulnerable. They don't want to be seen. So they just have this fake filter that they put on themselves. And it's really sad. And I wish that they wouldn't do that. But I mean, that's how they feel comfortable. And they've gotten by through life. you know, that's who they are and I accept them and embrace that. But I really, I really want to know the real them, you know? But I really want to get back to saying that like no matter how powerful or beautiful or successful you are, there's imperfections. mean, think of how many Hollywood movie stars you think are this great super couple or whatever, and then they break up. Why do they break up if they're so perfect? If everybody's so perfect, why don't they stay together forever? Because they're not perfect. They're human, just like us. And no matter how perfect you think somebody's life is behind closed doors, it's a mess. It's just... It's just a mess. I've had so many people tell me that they thought that me and my relationship was like goals. And I was like, honey, you don't even know. We've been through a lot. And what we post on the internet is all happy and fun. And we're doing this and we're doing that because the internet's really just everybody's highlight reels. It's all real life. I'm not going to post every fight and argument that we have on the internet because it's not anybody else's business. what we go through in our relationship. That's for us to work on. If I'm fighting or feuding with someone, I'm not going to make vague book posts and talk a bunch of one-sided slide comments on the internet about somebody. I'm going to have a conversation with them face to face and either resolve it or don't. But it's not anybody else's business prior to that conversation. So you're not going to see my fights and arguments and flaws on the internet because, and I mean this respectfully, it's not your business. It's, and I think so many relationships fail because I'm mad at my boyfriend. I'm gonna go tell the internet what he did and then everybody's giving me feedback based on what I said but nobody's hearing his story. So then I go back into the conversation. All these people said that you're wrong and you did this and it's like, well you didn't tell them about this part. Of course not. You're not gonna make yourself look like the bad guy. So then you have this inflated ego and these unrealistic opinions on what you should do in your relationship that... really needs to be discussed between you and two people. So don't ever think anybody's relationship is perfect, no matter how good it looks online. Again, your online is just your highlight rails. You're not going to see the nitty gritty. I mean, there are some people that will just throw everything on there and those are very entertaining and I have a lot of friends that I keep just because it's fun to read their life story sometimes. and reading their imperfections makes me feel better about my flaws and imperfections. So I'm sure we all have those little guilty... those guilty things in our closet or whatever. But like I said, I know they're being real, they're not being fake. They're definitely telling real feelings, real thoughts, and I appreciate that. Most people appreciate the authenticity of being imperfect. I also look at, you know, my, my imperfections or mistakes as opportunities to learn or grow again in doing this podcast that took me four years because I wanted it to be perfect. And I launched it very far from perfect. every time I do something and it's wrong or it's, it's flawed. learn, we learn from it. Our brains are actually wired. If you're trying to learn something and like, my partner joked about like every time he got a new job, he was going to spend the first six months screwing everything he possibly could up. And then he's a genius and a god at doing whatever it is that he's doing. And he's not wrong. Like he's he's been at his current company for like 12 years now. And he almost got fired the first six months because they're like, what is wrong with this idiot? Like he has done everything you possibly can to screw everything up. And but that's how his brain learns is I can tell him to do something and he's not going to do it, until he does it and messes it up and then he's like, now I know. And a lot of our brains are like that, maybe not to that extreme, but to a good portion of it, you learn through your flaws, through your mistakes. you think about your most embarrassing moments or your biggest life lessons, it was usually through some sort of mistake, something happened. And the funny thing is, is most of us will like, be so hard on ourselves about something we did that wasn't perfect and we're so embarrassed when we think about it and we want to turn inside out because we're so embarrassed about what happened. But in all honesty, like, do you really think that anybody else remembers that incident besides you? Chances are no. Like maybe for a week or a day or two, you might've been a joke or a laugh or a thought, but years down the road, do they remember that thing that you were embarrassed about? No. I was having a conversation with one of my buddies the other day and he was talking about like, this girl doesn't talk to him anymore. And she basically like ghosted him. And he was like, the last thing she remembers is listening to my tummy rumble while we were cuddling. And I was like, I promise you, she doesn't remember that and didn't care about that. That's not what that woman is thinking about. Like, that's funny that your brain is thinking that that's what she's thinking about. But I highly doubt that. I don't know, I've cuddled with a lot of people and our bellies rumble. They make sounds, we're human, that's a normal thing, right? I'm not just some weirdo that thinks that that's okay. I think he's a weirdo for thinking that it's not okay, but he's so in his head and got so embarrassed. Like, yeah, that's the last memory she has of me is my stomach rumbling in the middle of cuddle time. And I'm like, that's not what she's remembering. That's not what she's thinking about. So when you think about something that you're embarrassed about, that... you did and failed or you did and it was a mistake or you did and it wasn't as perfect as you want to do you really think anybody else remembers it at least to the level that you do? No, probably not. And that is what builds resilience is it's not about being, it's not about not being afraid. It's about being afraid and doing it anyway. It's about being afraid of not being perfect and putting it out there anyway. I am still, if I'm being a hundred percent honest, like I'm not great at advertising my podcast. Like I'll put it on my social media that nobody pays attention to, but I don't put it on my social media that everybody pays attention to because In my head, it's not good enough. It's not up to standards. It's not up to par. I don't want them to look at my... my episodes that like I don't think I have enough good episodes out there yet to to compensate for the not good episodes. And so I haven't advertised my podcast like I should. And I'm I'm getting over that because it is what it is. And if I'm going to keep doing it, then what's the point of doing it for nobody? You know, so I'm going to advertise it even though it's not perfect. And that's called resilience and or crazy psychosis, psychoticness, just crazy. I'm not, I'm not real sure. It could be a lot of things. But I also want to kind of address everybody's thought of like overnight success. So when you think of like Steve Jobs and Oprah and all these successful people, it was not overnight. It was overnight that they made it big or got acknowledged, but there's years and years and years of failures prior to that. And I think that's the part. that we should be focusing on. Yeah, it's great to look at your successes and praise them and be grateful for them and be like, yes, look at where I got. And, the phrase I started from the bottom, now I'm here is a real thing. But when you start at the bottom, you don't just jump out of the hole. I always picture the bottom is like the bottom of a pit. And you can't just like Superman jump out of that pit. No, you have to climb and crawl and scratch and fall. until you get to the top you have to work your way up there and maybe not everybody and maybe that's just my mindset but I Just think it's it's not very realistic to think that you can just Superman jump out of the hole some people can I'm not gonna discredit that that is absolutely a hundred percent possible But more likely you have to work for it. You're gonna fall and you have to be prepared to fall and you have to know that it's okay that you're gonna fall. You're climbing out of the hole and you slide down five feet. well, you're still climbing out of the hole. You're still doing the thing. So give yourself credit where you need to. It's okay to fail. It's okay to have setbacks. It's okay to not be perfect. It's okay to change your mind. My daughter for the longest time wouldn't decide what she wanted to do for school or where she wanted to go for college because she was so worried about making the wrong decision. and spending a bunch of money on college and then changing her mind and I was like, you're spending more money by not making money, by not going to college, by not learning a thing. So you learn a thing and you get a job and you hate it and you go back to school and you learn a new thing and you get a different job. And if you hate it, you change it too. I had one friend, we kind of joked about her being like a forever student because she kept changing her major and changing her mind and just got like three masters and four bachelor's and I lost count. I can't even keep track. And it was just kind of a funny joke, it was okay for her to change her mind. and was okay for them to change their mind. And you know, I've started this podcast and it's called the Do Life podcast with Layla Dawn and I might change the name of that. I might change the whole premise of the podcast right now. It's a self-help podcast and a year from now it might be like a women empowering women podcast. I don't know. I could change whatever I want. Right now I don't feel like I'm changing it. I'm pretty happy with what I'm doing and where I'm at. But I'm just saying if I wanted to change it, I could and it's okay. It doesn't mean that everything I've done is in vain. It's not perfect. It's not a waste. It's just, it's a change. So yeah, so be better at embracing your flaws and understanding that life doesn't just happen overnight and any... I love the phrase that anything worth it takes work. And I know there's all these manifestation mindset shifts and you shouldn't think like that, but I really do think that, you know, the 80, 20 % rule applies. Like you can think and plan and learn and do all the things 80 % of the time, but 20 % of the time you have to be implementing, you have to be doing, have to be moving forward, making progress, doing something, even if it's not perfect. And so. I didn't get that memo when I was planning on doing this podcast for four years. And I spent a hundred percent of my time learning and planning and plotting and zero percent of my time doing. And like I said, the doing part is where you learn the most because that's where you get your failures. It's where you get your setbacks and that's where you embrace your imperfections. And that's how you build resilience. And that's how you move forward in life, not just professionally, but romantically and in general. And so I know I just talked about your mindset and focusing on your mindset shifts. And the one thing I want to say to that is focus on progress over perfection. I know I've said this in a couple other episodes, but it's so relevant. Progress over perfection. If I could, I just tell myself that over and over and over again when I'm afraid to do something. I have to have all these flyers done. I have to make the advertisement. I have to have this progress over perfection. Do the thing. Just do it. Stop making excuses as to why you can't and what you have to do before you do it. No, just do it. Just do the thing. Go do it. Go right now. Get off this. Hang up on me like this is a phone hang up. Who hangs up anymore? Wait, no. Leave. Leave now. You can come back to me later. Watch a different episode, whatever you're do, but go do the thing right now. I'm not mad. That's okay. Okay, you're not doing the thing. All right. Do you want some more help? Okay. Again, when we think about what we're not doing, we're not perfect. I hate my nose. I hate my hair. I hate my eyes. Do your friends agree with you when you're like, this is a problem with me? No, your friends are like, you're crazy. What's wrong with you? Stop acting like that. Go do the thing. So, treat yourself with compassion and talk to yourself, make that internal brain your friend. Who's your height man? Who's in the background? Who's talking nice to you? Because we're not always so nice to ourselves, so we need a voice in our head that is nice to us. I know I've talked about this in a couple other episodes, but I hear the GPS voice in my head. when I have these super negative thoughts and I'm like, this isn't perfect. This is trash. Throw the whole episode away. Don't even bother with it. I already have that thought in the back of my head right now because I'm like, am I really giving value or am I just sitting here rambling? This episode's garbage. Throw it away. Let's start over. Do a whole other one. I hear the GPS voice in my head and it says redirecting. And then I think of who's my hype man? Who's in the back of my head? No, you know what? This episode's fine. They can't all be a hundred percent winners or whatever. you know, and it's just like, just move forward, just do what you're doing. You were compelled to do this episode for a reason. You're doing it. Post it. Just let it go. Let it be into the universe. And it is what it is. So when you have those negative thoughts in your head, what are you doing to redirect those thoughts and who are you replacing them with? Find a happy, good voice in your head that is like the voice of reason. that will tell you it's okay that this isn't perfect. It's okay. It's not up to standards. It's okay. It's okay. and celebrate small wins. So again, everything isn't perfect. Me putting out my very first episode was so cringy to me and I did it anyway and then I celebrated it. And it's so funny to think that I celebrated as cringy as it is because that was an accomplishment. That was a win. I did the thing. So when you do the thing, don't just think about what's the next thing. Don't worry about what the reactions or thoughts or whatever of the thing, celebrate yourself for accomplishing it. Because I know when you're in your head and you don't think it's perfect and you don't want to do it, it's really hard to get out of that. So to turn around and do it anyway is so big and you need to give yourself credit. So when you do the thing, praise yourself, celebrate small wins, win, big or small, celebrate the wins. And then like I said, that voice in your head, if you don't have good people around you, then you're not going to have good voices in your head. That's just all there is to it. You are the sum of the five people you spend the most time with. And, I've tried to spend the most time, with, people that motivate me and inspire me and whether when I know I can't be around them in person, I listen to their podcasts. listen to their, their speeches, their interviews. I spend as much time consuming their energy, their information as I can because I can't be with them physically in person and I don't surround myself with that many people in person. So I have to be really selective on the energies that I allow in. And I just want to say that like, if you don't have a good environment and there's sometimes there's things that we can't do about that. you can control what you consume and you can consume information from people who are inspiring and uplifting and hear those voices in your head. I have like Marissa Peer is a really good mentor of mine and so is Lisa Nichols. She is an amazing speaker and a motivational speaker and an inspirational speaker and she does all the things and I will hear her voice in my head a lot of times when I'm doubting myself in my business. And then when I'm doubting myself in my personal life, I hear Marisa Peer all the time. Her favorite phrase is, tell yourself a better lie. So when the redirecting GPS voice chimes in and I'm talking bad about myself, then Marisa Peer shows up and she's like, tell yourself a better lie. Because chances are when I was thinking negative thoughts, I was lying because they're not factual or real. They're just lies. So if I tell myself a better lie or what if the opposite were true, then my whole perspective changes, my mindset shifts. so yeah, so you can't necessarily always control who you're surrounded by, but you can control what information you consume and what voices you hear in your head, I think, as long as you're not a diff, we're not gonna, no, we're not gonna talk about that. And so what I really, really want to convey is to take action before you're ready. So take imperfect action. Take action before you're ready. Progress over perfection. Do the thing. Take action. Again, 20 % of everything you do needs to be applied action. You can manifest, can learn, can do all the things 80 % of the time that 20 % needs to be doing, even if it's not perfect. In closing, just want to say you don't have to be perfect to be enough. You're enough as is. your imperfections are what make you you. I love that my book is perfectly I'm perfect. Like it still says imperfect, but it's I'm perfect because that's everybody should resonate with that. And again, I just want you to embrace the messy, embrace the chaos, embrace the imperfection, embrace the sloppy, the human, the beautiful mess that we create and can create in our imperfections. Embrace it, acknowledge it, own it, be authentically you. Don't be afraid to be you because you're not perfect because even though there's no such thing as perfection, you're still perfect. Anyway, I think I've rambled on long enough. I do, I love you guys. I appreciate you for being here. really leave a review like share subscribe do all the things sign up for my newsletter lots of exciting things happening in the next couple of months so if you want all the secrets go to layladawn does life.com and sign up for the newsletter and get info for all the secrets anyway I I love you and I appreciate you and I thank you so much for being here and let's go do life imperfectly. Bye, thank you.