I help people wake up more fully to the perfection of who they are — exactly as they are. Success is the by-product of allowing our natural genius to express itself. We get better results in all areas of our life as a result of experiencing our true nature and allowing our deeper wisdom to guide us.

In my life, this meant surrendering my perfectionism and workaholism. These behaviors were the result of me thinking my personal mind was in charge and in control. My wisdom now helps me to see this is far from the truth and guides me to slow down and take the pressure off myself. Instead of this resulting in me getting less done, I find I am even more productive and able to accept more opportunities that come my way. All of this stems from the simplicity of understanding all I need to do is take the next step that makes sense to me rather than over-thinking things.

Relaxing more, being less uptight, not being driven by my insecurity and fear, has a huge upside, but it doesn’t mean that things always work out. This week was a humbling reminder of this. In my opening up and being willing to say, “yes” to life, I found myself outside of my comfort zone of feeling on top of things. I knew I was on track with what I am up to, but I wasn’t tracking the way I normally do. I had too much going on to do this and surrendered to the process. I joked with Barb Patterson that if I forgot to show up to one of our Mastermind calls she would know why.

I could hear my conditioned thinking trying to get my attention and get me to fall back into line. The buzz of thoughts like: “You are skating on thin ice.”, “Don’t think so big.”, and “Something bad is going to happen.” were in the back of my mind. However, I saw the fork in the road of my choices. I could choose to get comfortable and shrink my actions back down so I could live a life where I was more certain that I would be able to dot every “i” and cross every “t”, or I could trust my inner knowing and stretch into the unknown and unfamiliar. I could be willing to make mistakes along the way and see them as part of the learning curve of my business expansion.

I chose the latter and just as my fearful thinking predicted — disaster happened. Well not really, but in my ego’s opinion any kind of mistake is a disaster. I forgot to send an email by a deadline so someone else’s schedule was impacted. I managed to double book two clients in my office, and I made a mistake when testing my recording capacity for a webinar that resulted in a whole comedy of errors.

If I had been my good girl self and listened to my perfectionist thinking most likely none of these things would have happened. I also probably wouldn’t have been doing any of these things. Me stretching, expanding, and listening to my inner calling is what created these opportunities for me. I want to be clear, my intention is not to continue to make mistakes and be flaky, but I am grateful for the learning process as I grow.

I have a deeper knowing that I am resilient in the face of my limitations. I don’t need to live life in fear of coming face-to-face with my imperfections. I also don’t need to get rid of my imperfections before I live life or grow my business.

I don’t have this kind of thinking in the realm of relationships. One of the things I love about my relationship with Angus is it has room for all of me — warts and all. This doesn’t mean he likes all of me, but there is space for me to be my imperfect and messy self. I am getting better at doing the same for him. He is far more evolved in this area than I am. Now I see that life also has room for all of me, flaws as well, and not just love. Why just restrict my freedom to the personal realm?

I used my perfectionistic behaviors and standards as a way to try and protect myself from rejection and judgment. This worked in the sense that it helped me to avoid my own self-judgment and self-rejection. In my perception, holding myself tightly resulted in me making fewer mistakes. But I see the price for not allowing my inspiration to flow so freely more clearly now. The cost of using my precious life force to monitor and manage myself holds me back from living life and from being of service. It may not seem like a big deal to recognize there is no point in trying to be perfect. It really is common sense, but I got to see a deeper layer of how it really is fine to live freely and address whatever mistakes happen along the way.

I have a stronger foundation in knowing that I am capable of cleaning up my blunders and course correcting as needed. My judgments over my fallibility are looking less reasonable and even less helpful. The freedom of allowing myself to go for it and show up as myself is far more compelling.

I am nowhere near as organized and together as I would like to be. I am on a learning curve with this, and I can see my messiness and imperfections as human rather than shameful. I am not going to go out of my way to make mistakes, but I am also not going to take my familiar thoughts urging to me try and be more in control and more together seriously. My wellbeing resides in the intelligence behind life. This is beyond my control. Not only am “I” not running life, “I” am also not running myself. How can the impulse and expression of my true nature be off base even when I drop balls along the way? I do not have to get it right all of the time and neither do you. Live big and bold not perfect!

Rohini Ross is a psychotherapist, a leadership consultant, and an executive coach. Rohini facilitates personalized three-day retreats for individuals, couples, and professionals to help them connect more fully with their true nature and experience greater levels of wellbeing, resiliency, and success. Find out more about Rohini’s upcoming workshop, Relationship Essentials, co-facilitated with Angus Ross and Mark & Carrie Sisson by clicking here.