The secret to Showing up - even when we feel wonky!

Why do so very many of us, at some point in our lives, suffer from a feeling of wonkiness, a fear of note being good enough, the fear of not being perfect?  Which means, we don’t start, we don’t try, we don’t finish, we give up. We don’t Show Up

For some of us, this so-called normal feeling of not perfect only hits us on certain days, when nothing we do feels good enough. We kind of hate ourselves for a bit, pour ourselves a glass of wine, or take it out on our loved ones, go to bed angry and wake up kind of ready for a new start the next day 

For those people this feeling of ‘not good enough-ness’ seems to pass and doesn’t visibly impact their daily lives. Here’s the thing though - honestly, most of us struggle with this feeling, for a bit longer than a moment  

This feeling of 'not good enough-ness' does seriously impact how we Show Up and what we achieve in our lives

For some of us we fight the feeling of not being good enough by going into workaholic, overachieve mode. Others of us numb our pain by plunging into the insta-perfect dreams of other people’s false realities, comparing our ‘normal-ness’ with these highly crafted slices of not real-ness, we find even more evidence that we fall short. And so we become even more paralysed by insecurity, by indecisiveness, by procrastination

Some of us are crushingly aware of our own stagnation and sense of unworthiness, others of us are simply not aware that this may well be the biggest thing holding us back and stopping us from Showing Up in our own lives

In fact, for some of us, this feeling of not good enough-ness is so serious, it even has an official name - Atelophobia. Atelophobia is defined as a fear of not doing something right or the fear of not being good enough. In other words, it is a fear of imperfection. It is comprised of two Greek words - the prefix - Atelo(s) means imperfect and the post fix - phobia means an extreme or irrational fear 

People who suffer from Atelophobia worry that whatever they are doing is in some way not good enough, unacceptable or completely wrong.  It can be so debilitating that even small tasks, such as messaging someone, or eating or speaking in front of others can be difficult, because they are so afraid of making some kind of mistake and falling short of their task. They are consumed with feelings of deep self-consciousness and being constantly judged and measured. People with Atelophobia are often unconsciously making perfection their goal. A goal which cannot, of course, ever be reached. What happens? They are left feeling miserable and that they are a failure. Losing more and more confidence and self esteem with every unachieved and unachievable goal of perfectionism 

Even though the people suffering from Atelophobia are just as intelligent and talented as the rest of us, this talent and ability is hidden by the fear of failure and not being good enough. How heartbreaking is that?  

What a shocking waste of talent, capability, misplaced energy, and misunderstanding

If this is us, where do we start? 

First, if we have not already done so, we must acknowledge that this feeling of not being good enough may well be the biggest single thing which is stopping us from Showing Up in our own lives and achieving our unique potential

The second thing, the secret - is to realise that the simple yet incredibly powerful way we can all move forwards to fulfil our potential - is to swap perfection for progress 

Swapping perfection for progress means we aim for progress, not perfection

Small steps of progress move us forwards, rewarding us with a feeling of momentum, because we have achieved the small step. These small steps all gradually add up, giving us sparks of confidence, making it possible for us to achieve our goals and potential. This is what we call being progressfull - it means by swapping perfection for progress - we can let go of the feeling of not being good enough. Instead, we make the most of our talents by focussing our time and energy in the best small steps forwards to achieve our potential

The secret is that being progressfull helps us step by step, Show Up...

... allowing ourselves to be seen, with all our unique wonkiness, our breaks, knocks and imperfections, living our own, unique best lives, making our best contributions at home, at work in our whole life

Showing Up is not easy, but it is worth it. We all have just one life, so we might as well make sure we swap perfection for progress and Show Up to live our own life and most importantly, live it well

As Nelson Mandela so wisely said,

“There is no passion to be found playing small – in settling for a life that is less than the one you are capable of living”

If you would like to discover more secrets about how you can wonder at your unique wonkiness, swap perfection for progress and Show Up we have an Upskill (our name for a course/masterclass) to help you do just that – you can learn more about it here