Feeling perfect and complete
7 November 2006The title says it all I think. You are complete. You’re enough.
Normally I’m not one for investigating why people have “deficiencies†or issues but I think feelings of being incomplete are bred into us as we grow up. As children we’re developing into adolescents, from adolescents we’re developing into adults, and all the time we’re taught to believe that we’re somehow incomplete. “When you’re older†being a phrase we hear over and over again. So you’re not a complete 4 year old, you’re an incomplete 6 year old, who’s only an incomplete 8 year old, etc. etc.
At what age do you become complete? At what age are you a fully fledged adult, a complete human being? Is it 18, 21, 25, 30? It might seem like a stupid question but hopefully it will make you think that you spent so much of your life waiting for a time when you’d be a full grown up. We never take stock and say, “hey, I’m complete!†We spend so much of our lives thinking we’re becoming something whole that it becomes our default way of thinking – Never there, always just short of the mark.
What has all this to do with personal development, or confidence? Well, when we’re developing social skills or social confidence, there is a massive tendency to think you don’t know enough, or aren’t experienced enough, aren’t capable enough, aren’t valuable enough, or just simply aren’t enough to tackle certain situations.
When we say we’re becoming more socially confident we’re putting ourselves forever in a work in progress mindset. If you are becoming something you aren’t it yet. So you’re always in some way deficient, and incomplete.
Right now, you simply cannot be anything more, or anything less. Right now, you’re perfect. You might have a hard time believing that but just consider it for a moment. If we take perfect to mean “cannot get any better†in this moment, you cannot get any better. Because if we were to try to become better, it would take time, so we’d sacrifice this moment for the hope of some future moment being perfect. If we continue to do so, we never appreciate this moment. Or any for that matter.
From an intentional point of view, when you think you aren’t enough, you’re going to put yourself in situations where you can’t cope, and you’ll only acknowledge the ‘evidence’ that proves you aren’t enough.
Can you become better? Yes, always! But that doesn’t mean that at this moment you are somehow insufficient, incomplete, or just plain not enough. You are enough right now. In the future you can become more. But right now, you’re perfect.
So how do you become better if you’re already perfect?
Stop becoming, start being!
This might seem like it conflicts with what I’ve written above but here me out. Whenever you tell yourself that you’re becoming something you’re putting the thing you want to be the most just out of reach.
It is possible to be both confident and becoming even more confident. It’s important to recognise the confidence you have already built inside you. An analogy might be that you’re like a water balloon. You’re still a water balloon without any water in you. (Water can be happiness, success, responsibility, growth, freedom – whatever you want to fill your life with.) As more water is added you’re still a water balloon. You are complete and purposeful.
Now, let’s ignore the part where the water balloon becomes too full and bursts! Probably the only thing that’s impossible in your life is to out evolve your own lifespan. You’ll always be able to grow and develop right up until your death.
So instead of saying that you’re becoming confident tell yourself that your confidence is growing everyday. By phrasing it like this you’ve accepted that you already have confidence and it is growing. You’re complete and developing! Who wouldn’t want to be complete and becoming even better?
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