Perfect girl, be gone!

As I sit here on my couch at one o'clock in the morning, drinking a pepsi , my inner perfect girl starts to creep up, and I am feeling like quite the failure. I am supposed to be eating well, and exercising 32 times a day, but I am just plain worn out, I'm PMSy, and I decided that for tonight, my inner Perfect Girl needs to BE GONE!

Many of us let our inner Perfect Girl take the driver’s seat because we believe that she knows all the answers and that she knows better than we do. Indeed, in many cases Perfect Girl has helped us be accomplished and get where we are in life. However, Perfect Girl can also hold you back from being your true self and from living your life to its fullest.

Perfect Girl likes to stay within her comfort zone. She will only tackle things she knows she can at least be 90% good at. If you only stick to things you think you’re good at, how do you know you’re not missing out on something you could be awesome at, but would never try because initially it doesn’t look like something you could be good at. Start stepping out of your comfort zone. Its ok to be an imperfect girl every once in a while. Just think how good it will feel to succeed at something you never thought you would!

Perfect Girl is high maintenance. Ever notice that when she is in charge, you are always tired, frustrated, and tense? Why, because Perfect Girl is unrealistic, relentless and pushes you constantly to go way above the call duty. Start asking yourself why you have to do more work than need be. There will be many days when you go to bed and the house is not in tip top shape. There are days when I leave work, content that at least at the end of the day all my are still alive and breathing. It is days like these, where Perfect Girl had to be sent to bed early, while Realistic Girl takes over for a while.

Perfect Girl can’t stop and smell the roses because she’s fixated on wanting to prune the roses, water the roses, and read tips from Martha Stewart to make her roses grow bigger and brighter. In reality, life is not a competition or a beauty contest, only Perfect Girl believes that.

Perfect Girl apologizes for everything whether it is her fault or not. You are not responsible for other people’s actions, only your own if you genuinely did something to warrant an apology. If they get mad, so what? They will get over it. When you apologize for others you are actually hindering their own growth. People learn by having to reap what they sow.

Perfect Girl is unrealistic and boring. Flaws and Imperfections are what make people real, its what makes us who we are. I know that Perfect Girl will rear her ugly head every once in a while, but its up to us to beat her back, push her away, and love our imperfect selves. It's okay to take risks, set boundaries, and learn from our mistakes is to embrace those truths in our own lives.

As Mormons I think that Perfect Girl seems creep into our lives more often than we like. Sometimes we think about a good Mormon wife and what she supposedly does. She bakes, knits, cleans, has a spotless house, exercises twice a day and eats 30 calories a day, does her visiting teaching every month (the first day), her genealogy is up to date (from Adam), she volunteers at the school, hospital and library (every day), she's read the scriptures at least twice this year (all 4 standard works), her husband comes home to a four course meal and her children are always polite, clean and on their way to being the next Bill Gates or Nobel Prize winner. That must be tiring! I need a nap just thinking about it.