Taking risks requires what the perfectionist dreads the most – the fear of the unknown and of failure. So it is important to “put your head into the lion’s mouth,” directly to dare to take some risks that you know will challenge your image as a perfectionist. This means doing some things that you know you are not very good at, and letting it be OK to be a beginner. Allow yourself to be a vulnerable beginner with the attitude of beginner’s mind, the mind of fresh appreciation, where everything is approached with keen interest, as if for the first time.

For example, try making a short-term trade if you’ve never done it before, cooking a simple meal if you never liked to cook, learning a new dance step, traveling to a distant city or foreign country that seems too far away and scary for you, or sitting down and writing a passionate letter, essay, or short story if you’ve never liked writing. It doesn’t matter what you choose – the idea is to take a risk.

Along with trying risky activities that are new for you, try some activities that you know you like but have avoided because you don’t think you do them well enough. Let yourself recapture the interest and excitement you had with these activities before you cut off your excitement by turning it into the fear of not being good enough.

Think about the number of activities and projects that you have started but never completed because of a fear of never being good enough. Go back to those dance lessons, learn that instrument, or take that language class. Give yourself a new chance, with an attitude of allowing for mistakes but enjoying it anyway. Approaching an activity with a new attitude, you may experience much more pleasure than you previously allowed yourself.

You must be willing to face your own embarrassment of not measuring up and your need to be in control at all times. The more you see that you can cope with being out of control and manage your embarrassment at knowing little or nothing about what you are doing, the more you will be ready to accept that good enough performance is, indeed, something worthy of feeling real satisfaction from. This understanding puts you squarely on the path toward transforming your perfectionism to the healthy pursuit of excellence.

The emotion of embarrassment is important in another way. The recognition of your uniqueness, instead of being a good reason to love yourself, is turned against yourself negatively in the form of embarrassment. If you are going to find “perfection in imperfection,” as Zen encourages us to do, you have got to be at peace with your own uniqueness. This means overcoming your embarrassment of your individual differences.

Perfectionists have a deep fear and mistrust of their individual differences. While they want to stand above others and be recognized as superior to them, at the same time they fear standing out because it makes them feel different. For example, you might be embarrassed by a body part that is not perfectly proportioned, your voice, manner of speaking, or style of walking. Each of these examples may be experienced as making you different and therefore out of step with others¡ªor it may be experienced as an expression of who you are that need not be altered for the sake of pleasing others. One sign of healthy adult maturity is coming to accept, appreciate, and honor one’s individual differences rather than be embarrassed by them. This is taking the risk of allowing yourself to truly be yourself. To do so you must view your individual differences through the lens of an attitude called appreciative mind.

Appreciative Mind versus Judging Mind
It is possible to transform judging your behavior, others’ behavior, and the world in general, to a non-judging appreciation of things just as they are. While a judging mind likes to focus on differences that lead to evaluating and comparing everything and everybody, the appreciative mind allows things to be left alone just as they are without comparison.

One way to work with the concept of the appreciative mind is to walk around for a day with one simple idea in mind: that everything you do and everything you see others doing is to be appreciated, just as it is. To appreciate something means to take pleasure in it or receive satisfaction from it and to honor and respect it. The way to appreciate your own behavior and that of others is to view it as perfect in its imperfection.

For one day, see everything that you do as just right in its imperfection. Begin to notice how you can switch your perception from judging and comparing to appreciating all behavior as uniquely perfect just as it is.

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