The Power of Showing Up Imperfectly

Here's a story…

My BFF also happens to be a professional photographer, which is a handy combo if you can find it. (You can’t have her as a BFF. She’s taken. She might be available for photography, though.)  I needed some headshots and brand photography for my website, so she came over recently. 

And let me tell you, I really, really did not want to do it.  Here’s why.  I’m older than I was the last time.  I’m not as thin/smooth/groomed/pretty/tan/fill-in-the-blank as I would like to be.  I find it very awkward to stand there and obey the instructions (“Turn your wrist out a little”—HUH?). 

But you know what I decided?  SCREW IT!  And I do not say that lightly.

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I feel the pressure to look a certain way (I do not and cannot measure up to some crazy standard I have in my head). I also know that my value, and your value, is so much more than “looking a certain way.”  Showing up looking the way I actually look is a radical act of self-love and vulnerability.  I actually think not being 100% glossy, shiny and perfect is a good thing for the folks I'm here to connect with! 

Funny story... do you know Brene Brown's viral TED Talk, the vulnerability one that got a bajillion views and launched her to self-help superstardom?  Well if you haven't seen it, you should.  Anyway, I watched it about five times because I loved the talk so much, and then I got an invite to do my own TED Talk. It was so awesome, but I spiraled into a complete panic trying to figure out what to wear.  And then I thought, what did Brene brown wear in her TED Talk that I'd watched four times? I had absolutely no idea.  I couldn't remember!  I remembered what she looked like, but I could not tell you what she was wearing. So I watched it again to see her outfit, and she pretty much looked like she wandered out of her college professor office hours and hopped up on stage at TE, which is to say, she looked fine, great even, but not like she got professionally dressed by a team of designers.

Her message would not have been better if she had been more stylish, younger, sexier, or any of the things that we so often want to be ourselves.  Her message was so good her "look" was incidental.  If anyone was somehow turned off by her not looking like a glamorous news anchor or teenage TikTok celebrity, that's on them, not on Brene, and not on her message.

The moral of the story is I highly recommend that you show up too, despite the fact that you’re not ready and you’re not perfect.  It might mean telling your best friend your secret.  It might mean making an Instagram post about your art.  It might mean calling your dad and telling him you love him.  It might mean hiring a professional photographer to shoot photos for your website. Whatever it is, you might not be ready, but the window is NOW! Leave the crossroads and do the scary thing.

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