Am I Beautifully Imperfect

Or Imperfectly Beautiful?

Last year, I set myself several goals. One of those was to journal, and I played around with several prompts and routines. Since then, I have been very consistent with my journaling.

One experiment I tried was writing a daily affirmation. I was least sure about this one, as truth be told, I thought it was a bit naff but figured what was the harm.

My affirmation for 2023 was, 'I am enough.'

I chose this statement as it is a self-limiting belief about myself. It is one I have taken onto myself and began when I was young. The older I got, the more I repeated it, the more it dug itself in.

• I wasn't pretty enough
• I wasn't smart enough
• I wasn't a good enough parent

But it's not true. I am enough, and I am pleased to see that my negative self-talk has reduced as the year has progressed. I've been so happy with how much my affirmation helped that I wanted to work on my self-limiting belief of perfectionism.

Self-limiting beliefs are ideas of who we are that don't help us. We generally form them in childhood; they're a safety mechanism that can work against us if over-used or not used appropriately.

As I identify my self-limiting beliefs, I'm working on challenging them. Part of this is coming up with a statement that reflects a new way of thinking. It took me some time to…