Ageism, Sexism, Racism, Perfectionism. Anytime we attach the suffix, -ism, to a word it seems to turn it into something ugly.

Webster tells us the three letter suffix is simply intended to convey the act, practice, or process of doing something.

Perhaps it’s time to redeem those three letters; so let’s coin a word to reference a practice we should all embrace: imperfectionism. The next time you’re tempted to believe you’re going to do something perfectly, love someone perfectly, or even live a particular moment perfectly you can remind yourself that you practice imperfectionism.

Step One of imperfectionism is acceptance. Accept yourself, other people, your immediate environment, and the world as imperfect.

Though you will hopefully have many moments when you reach a standard of excellence, you will always be able to look back and identify some way you could have improved upon your performance. In much the same manner, if you know someone for any length of time, they will almost surely disappoint you. Your family, your classmates or coworkers, your neighbors, and every last public figure will fail to live up to the highest standards every moment of every day. Heck, most of them won’t even live up to those standards most of the time.

This world is anything but perfect and it won’t take you anytime at all to realize bad things happen to good people and no one gets what they deserve all the time. (This is, by no means, always a bad thing!)

Once you recognize that everyone is imperfect you’ll breathe a sigh of relief if you just give yourself a minute to understand what that means! Accepting the inherent imperfection of life gives you a lot more room to enjoy everyone and everything around you because you no longer compare actual people and experiences to what could’ve or should’ve been. You can finally stop shoulding on yourself!

Step Two of imperfectionism is forgiveness. This step usually requires a little re-education. Forgiveness is not letting someone else off the hook. Forgiveness is not something you do for someone else; it is something you do for yourself. It is the way you restore your freedom!

When someone, something, or life itself brings you pain it’s completely normal to direct all kinds of feelings at the person, place, or circumstance that harmed you. Forgiveness is granting yourself room to feel what you feel while refusing to be identified with the pain or the source of that pain. It is saying, “I am going to be the person I choose to be no matter what happened to me.” It is refusing to rent space in your head to anyone or anything.

Finally, this step implies and even requires self-forgiveness. You’re imperfect, and that’s not something for which you need to apologize.

Step Three of imperfectionism is hope. Once you’ve accepted this imperfect world and the imperfect people who populate it, you’ll start feeling a lot more hopeful. You can focus on all the times someone loved you well, even if imperfectly, and hope they will love you again. You can remember all the times you gave the best of yourself without giving much energy to how you might have done even better. You can rejoice that most people are doing their best at any given moment, and you can forgive the fact that sometimes their best isn’t nearly as good as they might have desired.

Imperfectionism is a practice that is especially helpful to anyone who’s mourning. Grief is hard enough without laying expectations on yourself that you’re supposed to have been perfect. You’re not perfect, but then again, you were never supposed to be. You were just supposed to be your imperfect self, and you did that. So now you can step up, step out, and lean into life knowing you won’t always get it right, but as long as you’re giving it your imperfect best, that’ll do. Yes, that’ll do!

LifeWellLived was born from grief. It was born of a desire to accompany people moving through the pain of loss. It was born of a determination to make that journey a little more bearable by helping people tell their loved one’s story, celebrate their lives, and share their experience, strength, and hope with others. It was born to serve you.