Happy Friday! Here’s your weekly tip on how to be more human at work

Embrace your lack of perfection

Take some time with that thought for a minute. It seems simple — and I suppose it is — but it’s also profound. I hate the phrase “be vulnerable” because it implies that being invulnerable is an option. But if the concept of vulnerability resonates with you then what I’m saying here is: embrace your vulnerability (and everyone else’s).

This might be the most powerful idea I can share with you on how to have a healthy, happy, fulfilling life and career.

What drives me more than anything is the fight against conformity. Conformity is the cause of so many people not being themselves, not pursuing their passion, not living their dream, not discovering and reaching their full potential, not contributing their unique gift to the world. I feel fairly certain that the person who might have cured cancer already lived and died; but instead of pursuing the gift they had, they conformed to expectations and pursued an alternate path. The thought that the world got one more mediocre accountant instead of the cure for cancer haunts me.

To me, conformity is the greatest human tragedy. More than all the disgusting isms; more than war; more than natural disasters…All of those are horrible. But they happen sometimes and not to all people. Conformity happens all the time and affects everyone. And though it is, in many ways, inflicted on us by society, what makes this tragedy so unbearably, um…tragic, is that we all have the power within us to end it. Each one of us can make the choice to not conform. And when our physical circumstances don’t allow us to exercise that choice (e.g., you’re a captive) we can still be nonconformists in our minds.

I took that little detour to discuss conformity because I believe that conformity is the force that lies underneath our constant fight to appear perfect.

Think about all of the ways we strive to appear perfect to others. I’ve written about some of these in my previous Friday articles. We’re ashamed to admit to coworkers that we have to go to the bathroom; we’re ashamed of being seen eating so we turn off our cameras; we’re ashamed of admitting that we’re in menopause so we suffer hot flashes instead of stepping out of the room or bringing a fan; we’re ashamed to admit that we’re not ok and so when asked how we’re doing we respond “great”; we overprepare for meetings and presentations to avoid the horrors of making a brief flub or having to say “I don’t know” when asked an obscure question about COGS from 7 years ago. I could keep going because almost everything we do is affected by our desire to conform. How we speak, what we wear, the work we do, the leisure activities we choose, the friends we surround ourselves with…conformity is a virus that infects our entire lives.

We want to appear perfect so that we can be accepted. It’s almost that simple. And that desire for acceptance and belonging makes us do things and not do things that take us further away from who we are.

The costs of living this way are severe. Let’s leave aside, for now, the costs to you and society of not pursuing and sharing your unique gift with the world; even so, the costs of managing the impression you convey in the futile effort to appear perfect are insane. It’s hard work. It’s exhausting. It robs you of energy that could have gone toward pursuing joy, doing something that actually affirms rather than denies who you are, or just having a good time.

The moment you accept — and I mean really accept — that you’re not perfect, your life instantly gets a whole lot easier and a whole lot happier. I’m not naively saying that all your problems will be solved and life will be unlimited sunshine, rainbows, and ponies. The world will still find ways to make life difficult for you. But you’ll largely stop making it difficult for yourself.

I fully expect to write more about this in future articles but for now I want to share a video with you that exemplifies, for me, what embracing your lack of perfection looks like and why it’s so unbelievably healthy.

First of all, kudos to this man! This cannot have been easy. It took a lot of bravery. But imagine how difficult this man’s job and life would be if he tried to white-knuckle his way through these moments. Let’s say he could manage to suppress these panic attacks. At what cost?

Imagine what it must feel like when one of these is about to happen and you refuse to let anyone know. I’ve been in meetings when I’ve had an upset stomach and have been terrified that I might have to abruptly leave to ̶t̶a̶k̶e̶ ̶c̶a̶r̶e̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶b̶u̶s̶i̶n̶e̶s̶s̶ have explosive diarrhea. It would be so much easier to just tell people that I’m not feeling well and might have to excuse myself. The effort expended to appear perfect takes its toll. [By the way, the crossed out part above is what I initially wrote out of fear of being too explicit or offensive. I’m writing an article about being more human and not trying to appear perfect and even as I’m writing it, the forces that make me want to not offend you are stopping me from saying what I want to say. That’s how fucking insidious conformity is. It rears its head everywhere and is present at all times!]

Do you think any of this is healthy? Think about that weatherman. If he chose to keep his panic attacks a secret, not only would he be suppressing a physical reaction from his body — bad enough on its own — but he would have to engage in a coverup to hide all of this from his coworkers. The coverup would fail of course and the consequences would almost definitely be worse. Revealing this to his coworkers allowed them as a team to prepare for what happens when he has a panic attack on the air. Covering it up would mean that none of his teammates would be ready to step in and take his place. This is a perfect example of how work cultures that demand perfection dilute their own effectiveness.

But the damage goes beyond that. Because the coverup required to keep this man’s panic attacks a secret would require that he put up walls between himself and his teammates. And the walls we put up between ourselves and our fellow humans are never as finely-tuned as we would want. Those walls don’t just keep the bad stuff from getting out, they also keep the good stuff in. They get in the way of us forming genuine, trusting, loving, human relationships with people. Go ahead and try it for yourselves. Try and keep a secret from your close friends — I bet you’ll find more often than not that keeping that one secret puts up a much bigger wall between you and your friend than you had intended.

Let go of the false impression that you are or can be perfect. Of course, keep trying to be a better version of yourself. But do that for your benefit not because you feel compelled to appear perfect to others. Once you truly accept this in your own mind and heart, then share it with your team and your friends. Let them know you suffer from panic attacks. Let them know you ate bad seafood last night and might have to make a beeline for the bathroom at a moment’s notice.

You do not have to reveal everything to everyone. That’s for you to decide. But don’t let the futile and unhealthy desire to appear perfect in front of others be the deciding factor.

This message was brought to you by the humans of Rule No. 1.