Johanna K. Lahti

Stop Chasing Perfection: Time to Be More You

I see you striving to be better.

I see you trying to improve yourself so you could have the relationships/body/job/life of your dreams.

I see you wanting to change your clothes, your hair, your face*.

I see you feeling itchy and uncomfortable just being you so you’re constantly looking for ways to make yourself into something different.

Because you think different is better.

And I’m here to tell you, you need to stop that.

You need to stop seeing yourself as a project for improvement.

You need to stop trying to change who you are so you could fit better into the world.

The world is massive. It’s got room for ALL that you are.

You just need to trust there’s space for all of you.

And hey, I know building that trust is the hard part.

Stretching out to be exactly who you are is the hard part. But you gotta do it anyway.

Because the alternative is like carving yourself with thousands of small cuts to make yourself smaller.

And if you’re feeling scared there’s no room for you as you are, I got you. Come on over to the Wild side. We got room for all of that and all the space you need to become even MORE yourself

*Where my 80s kids at? Let me know if you got the reference!.

Accepting flaws, constant improvement, personal development journey, personal growth, self-acceptance, self-improvement
From Anxiety to Freedom: How Embracing the Unknown Changed My Life

I used to be terrified of the unknown the uncomfortable and the messy. Both in life and in myself.

I had practically no tolerance for sitting with discomfort. I wanted ease and I wanted it to last forever.

I was so scared of the unknown, I spent most of my time anxiously trying to predict the future to protect myself from the pain of not knowing.

Because even my non-educated, wildly negative guesses about the future felt better than not knowing.

But most of all I hated the feeling of being flawed. I felt like I was absolutely filled with flaws and it drove me crazy how difficult it was to erase them.

I felt like Lady Macbeth, obsessively washing away the spots, never quite succeeding and going slowly mad from not being able to control these things about me.

And that word, CONTROL, is what ties all these things together.

I wanted to control the unknown. I wanted to predict the future. I wanted to control my life so I could drain it from all the discomfort. And most of all I wanted to control my flaws and have the ability to erase them at will.

And what did this tight grip of needing to be in control bring me? What did resisting the unknown, the uncomfortable and the flaws bring me?

Anxiety, terrible self-worth and lots and lots of pain.

And I would LOVE to tell you that the journey of embracing the unknown, the uncomfortable and my flaws was filled with sunshine and rainbows. I would love to tell you that these days my life is exuberant and happy and I feel content all the time.

But alas, that’s not how life works. The journey to embrace the things I used to reject was hard. It took a long time. I made messes, I fucked up and I forgot. And I still do.

And none of this, absolutely none of it, has protected me from pain.

I’ve felt incredible, deep, piercing pain while on this journey. And I’ve learned that it too, can be met with acceptance rather than rejection.

Now ain’t that the sales pitch of a lifetime?! Come sit with all these super uncomfortable things and gain not freedom from pain but….

But what do you gain? Why would I be even talking about this journey if it didn’t protect me or save me or stop me from experiencing pain?

I’m talking about it, no RAVING about it, because it gave me freedom.

SO much freedom. Freedom from the constant worrying. Freedom from anxiety.

Freedom from constantly monitoring myself to be better. Freedom from constantly rejecting parts of myself.

Freedom of living in a constant state of resistance, which is pretty much living in a constant state of “NO! NOT THIS!” and I can tell you that’s a fucking exhausting way to live.

And so, for me, that freedom is everything. It triumphs over the unknown. It makes the uncomfortable seem like a small thing. It makes my flaws dissolve.

Because if I’m FREE, I’m free to decide that the unknown can be good for me.

That the uncomfortable can be food for my growth and for my exploration and for my creativity. That my flaws are guides to my deepest ability to love.

And I can’t say if you should take this journey. It’s definitely not fun most of the time. It’s not easy either.

But oh, the freedom at the other end? It’s fucking priceless. And it’s constantly there, just waiting for you to discover it.

And you WILL. If you dare to face the monsters you’ve created in your head.

If you dare to look at them with kindness and with acceptance and sit down with them, you’ll find that they’re not the terrifying things you thought they were.

They’re your guides towards your expansion.

And whoa, when I tell you there’s a lot of room for that. Infinite room. For your growth. For you to expand into. To contain not just the unknown, the uncomfortable and the flaws. But everything else in between too.

Accepting flaws, Anxiety relief, Embrace the unknown, Finding freedom, Freedom from anxiety, growth mindset, Letting go of control, Overcome fear of the unknown, personal development journey, personal growth, self-acceptance, Self-discovery
WANT TO BECOME A BETTER PERSON? WHY YOU NEED TO STOP TRYING TO IMPROVE YOURSELF

Hey look, I know you want growth and improvement. That’s why you’re searching for and consuming content like this, right?

And you may believe that if you could just find the “magic key” to unlock it all, you’d become a better person. Someone more productive. Someone with less flaws. Someone with a life of more ease. Someone who hurts less. Fears less. Gets triggered less.

And that’s completely understandable. When you’re not happy with who and where you are, searching for the fix seems like the obvious thing to do.

But constant search for improvement is actually an act of self-abandonment.

Because every time you think about improving yourself, you also tell yourself “Who I am right now isn’t good enough.”

That’s nothing but judgement and resistance towards your current self.

And judgement and resistance are instant growth killers.

Judgement kills growth, because it makes you want to slop off parts of yourself instead of cultivating new, exciting ways to exist.

Resistance kills growth because it exhausts you. Being in constant resistance to who and where you are takes up a lot of energy. It consumes your time and your effort, when you could be focusing on how to expand and grow.

So what’s the alternative to self-improvement, when you also don’t want to remain where you are?

It all starts with compassion and self-acceptance. And before you scoff at them as the best tools for real change, consider this:

Everything that flourishes, does so because it’s supported by its environment.

There’s no real growth in an environment of judgement and resistance. Which self-improvement (no matter how prettily packaged) essentially is.

You want growth and change? When you fully embrace who and where you are, you release all the energy you used to fight it. And then you’re free to use that energy to propel yourself forward.

Trust me, it’s a lot easier to grow and change when you use your current state as your soil, not something you need to uproot.

And if you want to learn how to live a life of MORE, not less, stick around, because that’s exactly what we explore here.

authentic growth, constant improvement, growth mindset, personal development journey, personal growth, rethinking self-improvement, self-acceptance, self-compassion, self-improvement
HOW TO LET GO OF THE PAST

So you want to let go of your past?

What if I told you there was a better way?

What if I told you that instead of erasing your history, you could transform it into the fuel for your future growth?

We don’t need a spotless past to flourish. We need the fertile ground of our experiences.

Think of everything that grows.

It all grows from the ground, where everything that has decayed and died is. The ground that’s made of the past, is such a fertile soil for growth.

The moment you stop trying to erase parts of yourself or your past, everything changes.

You get to stop running. You stop fighting what’s already there. Instead you cultivate it. You use it. You make it your fertiliser. You realise that ALL that you are now is the perfect ground for you to grow into all that you will be.

When you own your past instead of erasing it, it becomes a part of your story. The one where you triumphed over hardships. The one that showcases your resilience. It becomes a part of your hero’s journey, instead of something to be ashamed of.

When you choose growth instead of erasure, everything feels different.

Old difficulties become the source of your current wisdom. Past wounds the soil of your new growth.

And here’s the VITAL part of it all.

When you own your past, you make it fully yours. And when it’s fully yours, you get to decide how you use it. And my dear fellow human, you can use it ANY way you want!

You can create an epic story of triumph and overcoming out of your past. You can make it your source of compassion and understanding. You can let it open you up to everything that sprouts from it.

When you own your past, you no longer need to ask how to let it go. Because it becomes your source for your growth, resilience and wisdom.

cultivate, letting go of the past, own your story, past experiences, personal growth, resilience, self-improvement, transform past, wisdom

Stop Chasing Perfection: Time to Be More You

From Anxiety to Freedom: How Embracing the Unknown Changed My Life

WANT TO BECOME A BETTER PERSON? WHY YOU NEED TO STOP TRYING TO IMPROVE YOURSELF

HOW TO LET GO OF THE PAST