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This post is all about Brene Brown Gifts of Imperfection Quotes.
Who is Brene Brown?
According to Brene Brown’s website, Brene Brown is a “researcher, storyteller” who has “spent the last two decades studying courage, vulnerability, shame, and empathy.”
Brene Brown is the author of six #1 New York Times Bestselling books and a podcast host (more on these later).
She is also very well known for her Ted Talk on vulnerability that currently has over 19 million views.
What are the three Gifts of Imperfection?
The Gifts of Imperfection is a book about embracing who you are, being authentic, and understanding that you are worthy just as you are.
The three gifts of imperfection are courage, compassion, and connection.
According to Brene, “to practice courage, compassion, and connection is to look at life and the people around us, and say, ‘I’m all in.’”
What are the 10 Guideposts to Wholehearted Living?
In the book, Brene Brown also notes 10 guideposts to wholehearted living.
Wholehearted living, according to Brene Brown’s website means “cultivating the courage, compassion, and connection to wake up in the morning and think, ‘no matter what gets done and how much is left undone, I am enough’.”
Brene Brown’s 10 Guideposts to Wholehearted Living are:
- Cultivating Authenticity: Letting Go of What People Think
- Cultivating Self-Compassion: Letting Go of Perfectionism
- Cultivating a Resilient Spirit: Letting Go of Numbing and Powerlessness
- Cultivating Gratitude and Joy: Letting Go of Scarcity and Fear of the Dark
- Cultivating Intuition and Trusting Faith: Letting Go of the Need for Certainty
- Cultivating Creativity: Letting Go of Comparison
- Cultivating Play and Rest: Letting Go of Exhaustion as a Status Symbol and Productivity as Self-Worth
- Cultivating Calm and Stillness: Letting Go of Anxiety as a Lifestyle
- Cultivating Meaningful Work: Letting Go of Self-Doubt and “Supposed To”
- Cultivating Laughter, Song, and Dance: Letting Go of Being Cool and “Always in Control”
Get The Gifts Of Imperfection on Amazon:
Brene Brown Gifts Of Imperfection Quotes
Here are some amazing Brene Brown quotes from her #1 New York Times Bestseller, The Gifts of Imperfection.
1. “Perfectionism is a self destructive and addictive belief system that fuels this primary thought: If I look perfect, and do everything perfectly, I can avoid or minimize the painful feelings of shame, judgment, and blame.”
2. “Healthy striving is self-focused: “How can I improve?” Perfectionism is other-focused: “What will they think?”
3. “Perfectionism is self-destructive simply because there is no such thing as perfect.”
4. “E.E Cummings wrote, “To be nobody-but-yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody but yourself – means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight- and never stop fighting.”
5. “No matter what gets done and how much is left undone, I am enough. It’s going to bed at night thinking, yes, I am imperfect and vulnerable and sometimes afraid, but that doesn’t change the truth that I am also brave and worthy of love and belonging.”
6. “Wholehearted living is about engaging in our lives from a place of worthiness.”
7. “Owning our story and loving ourselves through that process is the bravest thing we’ll ever do.”
8. “Authenticity is a collection of choices that we have to make every day. It’s about the choice to show up and be real. The choice to be honest.”
9. “The truth is: Belonging starts with self-acceptance. Your level of belonging, in fact, can never be greater than your level of self-acceptance, because believing that you’re enough is what gives you the courage to be authentic, vulnerable and imperfect.”
10. “Understanding the difference between healthy striving and perfectionism is critical to laying down the shield and picking up your life. Research shows that perfectionism hampers success. In fact, it’s often the path to depression, anxiety, addiction, and life paralysis.”
11. “Perfectionism never happens in a vacuum. It touches everyone around us. We pass it down to our children, we infect our workplace with impossible expectations, and it’s suffocating for our friends and families. Thankfully, compassion also spreads quickly. When we’re kind to ourselves, we create a reservoir of compassion that we can extend to others.”
More Brene Brown Quotes From The Gifts Of Imperfection
The following Brene Brown Gifts of Imperfection quotes will help you embrace who you are and realize that you are worthy and enough just as you are.
12. “Shame works like the zoom lens on a camera. When we are feeling shame, the camera is zoomed in tight and all we see is our flawed selves, alone and struggling.
13. “Cruelty is easy, cheap and rampant.”
14. “We cannot ignore our pain and feel compassion for it at the same time.”
15. “Here’s the bottom line: If we want to live and love with our whole hearts, and if we want to engage with the world from a place of worthiness, we have to talk about the things that get in the way—especially shame, fear, and vulnerability.”
16. “For many of us, our first response to vulnerability and pain of these sharp points is not to lean into the discomfort and feel our way through but rather to make it go away.”
17. “Laughter, song, and dance create emotional and spiritual connection; they remind us of the one thing that truly matters when we are searching for comfort, celebration, inspiration, or healing: We are not alone.”“Like the word hope, we often think of power as negative. It’s not. The best definition of power comes from Martin Luther King Jr. He described power as the ability to effect change.”
18. “Mindfulness: Taking a balanced approach to negative emotions so that feelings are neither suppressed nor exaggerated.
19. “Belonging is the innate human desire to be part of something larger than us.”
20. “Hope is a combination of setting goals, having the tenacity and perseverance to pursue them, and believing in our own abilities.”
21. “Authenticity is the daily practice of letting go of who we think we’re supposed to be and embracing who we are.”
22. “Nothing has transformed my life more than realizing that it’s a waste of time to evaluate my worthiness by weighing the reaction of the people in the stands.”
23. “If you look at the current research, here are five of the most common factors of resilient people:
-
- They are resourceful and have good problem-solving skills.
- They are more likely to seek help.
- They hold the belief that they can do something that will help them to manage their feelings and to cope.
- They have social support available to them.
- They are connected with others, such as family or friends.”
Best Gifts Of Imperfection Quotes Continued
Quotes from Brene Brown’s The Gift of Imperfection continued.
24. “Staying vulnerable is a risk we have to take if we want to experience connection.”
25. “The dark does not destroy the light; it defines it. It’s our fear of the dark that casts our joy into the shadows.”
26. “Faith is a place of mystery, where we find the courage to believe in what we cannot see and the strength to let go of our fear of uncertainty.”
27. “If we share our shame story with the wrong person, they can easily become one more piece of flying debris in an already dangerous storm.”
28. “Worthiness doesn’t have prerequisites.”
29. “We’re a nation hungry for more joy: Because we’re starving from a lack of gratitude.”
30. “The universe is not short on wake-up calls. We’re just quick to hit the snooze button.”
31. “Until we can receive with an open heart, we are never really giving with an open heart.”
32. “Here’s what is truly at the heart of wholeheartedness: Worthy now. Not if, not when, we’re worthy of love and belonging now. Right this minute. As is.”
33. “’Often people attempt to live their lives backwards: they try to have more things, or more money, in order to do more of what they want so that they will be happier. The way it actually works is the reverse. You must first be who you really are, then do what you really need to do, in order to have what you want.’ – Margaret Young”
34. “I’m not very creative’ doesn’t work. There’s no such thing as creative people and non-creative people. There are only people who use their creativity and people who don’t.”
35. “The heart of compassion is really acceptance. The better we are at accepting ourselves and others, the more compassionate we become.”
Inspirational Quotes From Brene Brown’s The Gifts Of Imperfection
The amount of quotes in this book that can help you through life is incredible. Here are more amazing Brene Brown Gifts of Imperfection quotes on belonging, perfectionism, courage, and shame.
36. “One of the greatest barriers to connection is the cultural importance we place on ‘going it alone’. Somehow we’ve come to equate success with not needing anyone. Many of us are willing to extend a helping hand, but we’re very reluctant to reach out for help when we need it ourselves.”
37. “A deep sense of love and belonging is an irreducible need of all women, men, and children.”
38. “We cannot selectively numb emotions, when we numb the painful emotions, we also numb the positive emotions.”
39. “To love someone fiercely, to believe in something with your whole heart, to celebrate a fleeting moment in time, to fully engage in a life that doesn’t come with guarantees – these are risks that involve vulnerability and often pain.”
40. “If we want to make meaning, we need to make art. Cook, write, draw, doodle, paint, scrapbook, take pictures, collage, knit, rebuild an engine, sculpt, dance, decorate, act, sing – it doesn’t matter. As long as we’re creating, we’re cultivating meaning.”
41. “Squandering our gifts brings distress to our lives. As it turns out, it’s not merely benign or ‘too bad’ if we don’t use the gifts that we’ve been given; we pay for it with our emotional and physical well-being. When we don’t use our talents to cultivate meaningful work, we struggle.”
42. “Perfectionism is armor. Perfectionism is not the same thing as striving for excellence and it’s not about healthy achievement and growth.”
43. “Practicing spirituality brings a sense of perspective, meaning, and purpose to our lives.”
44. “Ordinary courage is about putting our vulnerability on the line. In today’s world, that’s pretty extraordinary.”
45. “Shame, blame, disrespect, betrayal, and the withholding of affection damage the roots from which love grows. Love can only survive these injuries if they are acknowledged, healed and rare.”
46. “It’s an unraveling—a time when you feel a desperate pull to live the life you want to live, not the one you’re “supposed” to live. The unraveling is a time when you are challenged by the universe to let go of who you think you are supposed to be and to embrace who you are.”
47. “The opposite of play is not work—the opposite of play is depression.”
48. “To practice courage, compassion, and connection is to look at life and the people around us, and say, “I’m all in.”
49. “Perfectionism is not self-improvement. Perfectionism is, at its core, about trying to earn approval and acceptance. Most perfectionists were raised being praised for achievement and performance (grades, manners, rule-following, people-pleasing, appearance, sports). Somewhere along the way, we adopt this dangerous and debilitating belief system: I am what I accomplish and how well I accomplish it.”
50. “If we want to cultivate hopefulness, we have to be willing to be flexible and demonstrate perseverance. Not every goal will look and feel the same. Tolerance for disappointment, determination, and a belief in self are the heart of hope.”
Other Popular Books By Brene Brown That You Should Read
Here are a few more popular, amazing books by Brene Brown that you should check out.
Daring Greatly
Daring Greatly is a book about putting yourself out there and getting uncomfortable so that you can live the life you know you are capable of living. Otherwise, you’ll always wonder what life would be like had you “had the courage to step into the arena”.
Quotes From Daring Greatly:
1. “The willingness to show up changes us, it makes us a little braver each time.”
2. “Vulnerability sounds like truth and feels like courage.”
Get Daring Greatly on Amazon:
Dare To Lead
Dare To Lead is a good about leveraging empathy, connection, and courage in the workplace to be the best leader you can possibly be.
Quotes From Dare To Lead
1. “Only when we are brave enough to explore the darkness will we discover the infinite power of our light.”
2. “Clear is kind. Unclear is unkind.”
Get Dare To Lead on Amazon:
Braving The Wilderness
According to Four Minute Books, Braving The Wilderness “offers a four-step process to find true belonging through authenticity, bravery, trust, and vulnerability since it’s mostly about learning to stand alone rather than trying to fit in.”
Quotes From Braving The Wilderness
1. “Stop walking through the world looking for confirmation that you don’t belong. You will always find it because you’ve made that your mission. Stop scouring people’s faces for evidence that you’re not enough. You will always find it because you’ve made that your goal.”
2. “Courage is forged in pain, but not in all pain. Pain that is denied or ignored becomes fear or hate.”
Get Braving The Wilderness on Amazon:
Brene Brown’s Podcasts: Unlocking Us & Dare To Lead
If you’d rather listen to Brene Brown speak, you can check out her two podcasts, Unlocking Us and Dare To Lead.
Unlocking Us Podcast
Unlocking Us consists of “conversations that unlock the deeply human part of who we are, so that we can live, love, parent, and lead with more courage and heart.” per Brene Brown’s website. Start listening to the Unlocking Us podcast now!
Dare To Lead Podcast
According to Brene Brown’s website, the Dare To Lead podcast consists of “conversations with change-catalysts, culture-shifters, and more than a few troublemakers who are innovating, creating, and daring to lead.” Start listening to the Dare To Lead podcast now!
Brene Brown’s Netflix special: The Call to Courage
If you have Netflix, I highly recommend watching Brene Brown’s Netflix special The Call to Courage. It was released in 2019 and is so interesting. If you’re interested, check out the trailer now!
This post was all about Brene Brown Gifts Of Imperfection Quotes.
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