The Gifts of Imperfection Book Summary - 8 Best ideas from Brene Brown

The Gifts of Imperfection by Brene Brown | Book Summary & PDF

The Gifts of Imperfection is a great book on how to really embrace yourself. The author, Brene Brown, is a researcher on this topic and the book is a New York Times bestseller. Read it if you —

  • feel you’re not enough
  • feel you’re not worthy
  • struggle to own yourself and your story
  • feel that you are imperfect while everyone else around you seems perfect

We’re all human and thus we all struggle with being ourselves.

In The Gifts of Imperfection PDF summary you will learn:

  • How to have a wholehearted living
  • How to develop self-compassion (accepting oneself and others)
  • Choosing authenticity over approval
  • The cost of perfectionism
  • Managing both positive and negative emotions
  • 3 components of hope

SUMMARY OF KEY POINTS

1) Wholehearted Living – Overview

You are enough

The Gifts of Imperfection PDF summary - person's silhouette with arms wide open
Acknowledge your full being

This idea is all about knowing that you are enough. Being imperfect, vulnerable, afraid are all part of being human. But you are worthy of love.

Most people find it most difficult to accept that they are worthy of love from others or that they are enough as they are. They think that until they are perfect, they cannot be worthy of love. The book is about completely owning yourself and your story.

Another author, Dr. Amy Cuddy, says that presence and power are all about completely owning yourself, even in the most challenging situation. The key to true power is being unafraid of what others may think of them.

Read:

  • Presence by Dr. Amy Cuddy  

Don’t trade authenticity for approval

Many of us are guilty of trying to get approval from others instead of being authentic. When we stop believing in our worthiness, we start hustling for it by asking for approval from others for our words and actions. We get worthiness from the outside world.

But we need the courage to be our own self, to be completely authentic.

Again, according to Dr. Amy Cuddy, authenticity is the essence of presence and power. Every time we seek approval, we lose them.

We don’t arrive at this place already authentic or completely courageous. It’s a lifelong journey. We need to practice these values every single day for us to live a Wholehearted life.

Shame

Shame is the fear of not being loved for who we are.

  • keeps us from living wholeheartedly
  • makes us feel we’re flawed and unworthy of people’s love
  • the exact opposite of owning oneself

Shame will show up in many different ways, such worrying that people will think of you as someone not good enough or someone pretending that everything’s okay even though they’re not.

Sometimes it may also be the impostor syndrome saying “who do you think who you are?”

How to handle shame:

  • Develop emotional intelligence or EQ
  • Understand that this is a universal experience and we all feel shame, we have to have self-compassion towards ourselves.
  • Shed light on it the issue by talking about it in the open because when you do, it does not survive that easily.

Read:

  • Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman
  • Self-Compassion by Dr. Kristin Neff

2) Courage

The Gifts of Imperfection PDF summary - silhouette of a woman taking a huge leap
Courage is a habit

Courage is the ultimate value in life that we must embrace. We need it in order to live a Wholehearted life.

Courage is practice, so think about how you can practice it on a daily basis.

Courage is like—it’s a habitus, a habit, a virtue: You get it by courageous acts. It’s like you learn to swim by swimming. You learn courage by couraging.”  – Mary Daly, theologian

I always say that courage is not something you have — it’s something you do. We have to constantly practice it if we want to make it a reality. We have to courageously present ourselves to the world.

3) Self-Compassion

  • The more we accept ourselves, the more compassionate we become towards ourselves.
  • The more we become compassionate about ourselves, we become compassionate towards others because we start to see the common humanity, that everyone else is suffering and going through the same challenges.
  • Only when we know the faults and darkness inside of us can we be compassionate towards others.

Read:

  • Self-Compassion by Dr. Kristin Neff

4) Authenticity

The Gifts of Imperfection PDF summary - man holding a mask
Take off your mask

“To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you someone else is the greatest accomplishment.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson, Essays

We are constantly being bombarded by the society to be someone else. It does not want us to be unique. Instead, it wants us to be homogenized. Yet our job is to always be ourselves.

Authenticity is the essence of the book.

    • If we can be ourselves, then we are living wholeheartedly because we are completely owning ourselves.
    • We are enough and we are not trading our authenticity for approval
    • Authenticity may be a difficult thing to learn, but the key is to let people see your true self.
    • Have the courage to be imperfect.
    • Authenticity is the goal, not people’s approval or acceptance.

It’s a journey and a lifelong process, not a destination. We have to trade in the fear for authenticity for courage.

Read:

  • How to Be Rich by J. Paul Getty

5) Perfectionism

Perfectionism is when we associate ourselves with our accomplishments. It is a dangerous notion because it keeps us stuck. It is all about seeking approval and acceptance from others.

We may think perfectionism is the same as trying to be our best, but it’s more about trying to hide and protect ourselves. It slows us down and even cripples us from taking action.

Trying to be a perfectionist also makes us scared to make mistakes. The same idea is shared in the book How to Be an Imperfectionist by Stephen Guise. The achievement of perfectionism puts our whole self-worth on the line. We think that if we don’t achieve it, we have no self-worth.

According to the book Mindset by Dr. Carol Dweck, a perfectionist takes on the fixed mindset. It puts self-worth on the line. On the other hand, a person with a growth mindset doesn’t believe in perfectionism but believes he’s always evolving.

  • The perfectionist thinks that others won’t judge him if he doesn’t fail.
  • Self-compassion is a necessary component of perfectionism.
    • 3 components of self-compassion according to Dr Kristin Neff:
      • self-kindness
      • understanding/accepting that we’re all going through the same thing
      • mindfulness practice

Read:

  • How to Be an Imperfectionist by Stephen Guise
  • Mindset by Dr. Carol Dweck
  • Self-Compassion by Dr. Kristin Neff

6) Emotional Awareness

We have to develop both positive and negative emotional awareness. We can’t just run away from negative emotions and only want positive emotions.

According to Daniel Goleman, author of Emotional Intelligence, our goal is not to be free of anxiety or any other challenging emotions forever, but to be able to observe them and harness the power of these emotions.

Emotional awareness is about managing emotions according to the situation at hand rather than letting them run our life.

  • According to Todd Kashdan, who wrote The Upside of Your Dark Side, we have to be able to handle our dark emotions by making sure we are aware of them and are able to use them to our benefit.

Read:

  • Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman
  • The Upside of Your Dark Side by Todd Kashdan

7) We Can’t Numb Selectively

Once we become aware of our negative emotions, we also have to realize that we can’t just numb them and yet fully experience the positive emotions.

We can’t just numb all the fears, pain, shame, or suffering and then fully experience joy and happiness. We need to handle and live with both.

The same idea is shared by Todd Kashdan who said that when we numb the dark side, we also numb the light. When we numb the pain, we also numb the joy.

Read:

  • The Upside of Your Dark Side by Todd Kashdan

8) Resilience

A lot of research reveal that hope is directly correlated with resilience.

There are 3 components of hope according to a research by Rick Snyder:

  • Goals – We must set realistic goals
  • Pathway – We must figure out a way towards that goal
  • Agency – We must also believe in our agency, that we can make our goals happen

Also, according to Dr. Angela Duckworth, author of Grit, we need to understand that resilience will be hard but that we can figure out. It’s not about things being easy.

Read:

  • Grit by Dr. Angela Duckworth

9) Meditation

The Gifts of Imperfection PDF summary - silhouette of woman meditating
Spend time to meditate

If there’s one meta-level practice about everything else, it is Wholehearted living:

  • Joy
  • Letting go of perfectionism
  • Anxiety awareness and management
  • Resilience
  • Rest
  • Gratitude

All of these are benefits of meditation or can be cultivated as a result of meditation.

I’ve personally been meditating for 20 years and I have put together a free guided meditation audio that you can download here. It is hardcore mindfulness meditation which you can do every single day for 15 minutes, and then you’ll start seeing the benefits.

Related Readings:

  • Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman
  • Grit by Dr. Angela Duckworth
  • How to Be an Imperfectionist by Stephen Guise
  • How to Be Rich by J. Paul Getty
  • Mindset by Dr. Carol Dweck
  • Presence by Dr. Amy Cuddy  
  • Self-Compassion by Dr. Kristin Neff
  • The Upside of Your Dark Side by Todd Kashdan
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