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How I Learned the Innovative Art of Being Perfectly Imperfect
Ellen Liu, Generative Fellowship alum
(This story originally appeared on the CoreAlign blog, Feb. 4, 2015)
(This story originally appeared on the CoreAlign blog, Feb. 4, 2015)
When I was seven years old, I had a life defining moment. It was a conversation with my mom that went something like this:
Mom: Ellen, you really should have done it like this … blah, blah, blah….
Me: Well, okay. But no one’s perfect, mom!
Mom: That’s not true. I am perfect!
Me: Uh…okay.
Looking back at that moment, I’m pretty sure that my mom had no idea about the impact of the words she chose to utter at that moment. Maybe she meant to impress upon me the importance of hard work and perseverance, something that has been trumpeted by Amy Chua and caricatured by the Tiger Mom meme. Or maybe as a recent immigrant to the US, she didn’t really understand the meaning of “perfect,” as the English words were still quite new to her ears and tongue. Anyway, years later as a teenager, I confronted her with the question of whether or not she thought she was perfect, and she said, “Of course not. I make mistakes all the time!”
But for seven-year-old me, the damage was done. The lesson seared onto my brain was: “Avoid making mistakes at all costs!” Because you will look foolish. Because people will judge you. Because if you make a mistake, you will fail me, you will fail your family, and you will fail at life. And it’ll hurt.
That cut deeply into my identity, and over the years, it had an outsized influence on my worldview, my outlook on life, the choices I made, and how I viewed myself as a leader.
As I reflect on my CoreAlign Generative Fellowship experience this year, the most important challenges I learned about innovation are: 1.) Facing vulnerability head on, 2.) developing a sense of resiliency for myself in the face of failure or criticism, and 3.) learning how to lean into risk and failure.
These challenges all work stiff muscles – and require that I continue to practice, exercise, and train myself. Given my years of bad habits, how do I shift myself from a life-long operating system of “perfectionism” as the source of my identity and power, to one of “vulnerability and failure?” And as one mere individual within the reproductive health, rights, and justice movement – how can a personal shift toward opening myself up to vulnerability, failure, and risk generate something different, in service to the broader movement?
When I began my fellowship last February, I had thought my CoreAlign project would provide a solution to the cacophonous dialogue and lack of understanding of health as a human right in the US. Why was universal access to health care not a popularly understood concept, despite the Affordable Care Act’s passage? Throughout its torturous journey into law, the concept of health as a basic human right was seldom a central part of the public discourse; conversations were totally politicized and polarized. At worst, health care and the ACA were villainously characterized as a communist construct, and at best, it was a market-based solution that continued to leave vulnerable communities out the system. How could my project give advocates better tools for a broader understanding of the right to health in the US?
I had envisioned compiling some kind of toolkit, fact sheet, or website that would capture comprehensive definitions, practical examples of health as a human right taken from international movements, and explaining how it could be operationalized in the US by advocates, organizations, as well as everyday people. That was my perfectionist side , laying it all out.
Over the course of the fellowship year, I’ve truly learned that innovation requires some tense muscles to be worked out, massaged, and maneuvered. Thankfully, innovation is a process that can be learned, and that is what we all did as a Generative Fellowship cohort.
One of the first things I learned was that innovative ideas and solutions don’t spring forth from one’s mind in a “eureka-like” moment. Innovation, from the Latin word, innovare, means to renew or change. Implicit is a process iteration, or spring renewal, getting rid of things, and embracing change.
In other words, failing and getting up. Failing and getting up. Failing and getting up. And at the same time, being resilient enough to be able to take on the failing, the change, and the criticism – either from others or myself (many of us are our own worst critics). This is also what Brené Brown speaks of in her TED talk, The Power of Vulnerability. The power to be perfectly imperfect, and still have a strong sense of worthiness and respect for oneself.
CoreAlign’s design thinking process and the tools provided supported us and our development as innovative leaders. These tools included training on the concept of a minimally viable product (MVP), mindfulness meditation, and strengths-based self-assessments, as ways to build our own resiliency, self-awareness, and leadership. Thank you Marcus Buckingham for letting me know that I’m a Pioneer/Advisor. My MBTI told me something similar.
The other important thing I learned is that gratitude and a resilient mindset are closely linked. One reinforces the other. So one of my favorite resiliency strategies I adopted early last spring was to create a gratitude box where I dropped post-it sized notes of thanks. To myself. Just because.
Another strategy I started and have continued this fall is a one-day-a-week hand-written thank you card to a special someone person in my life that I felt very thankful for that week. I start off the day by writing the card, stamp it, and then walk to the mailbox to drop off. The emails, postcards, and letters I received in return are an incredible source of resiliency for my mind, body, and soul.
As reproductive health, rights and justice movement leaders, we are often drained by the challenges and intractable issues that compel us to do the work we feel so passionate about in the first place. CoreAlign’s innovation tools were not only incredible applicable and helpful to the redesign of my project, but also to my life. Definitely the seven-year old within me is jumping up and down with excitement as I continue on this journey. As for my project, I’ve honed in on the MVP idea of conversation starters about health as a human right – inspired by the LGBTQ movement’s success of connecting personal everyday stories to the political strategy of marriage equality.
Three decades and a CoreAlign Generative Fellowship later, I’m still trying to rewire my perfectionist brain. Thankfully, I’m slowly but surely working it out.
Ellen Liu is a second generation Taiwanese immigrant whose parents inspired her to work in the field of women’s rights and social justice philanthropy.
Mom: Ellen, you really should have done it like this … blah, blah, blah….
Me: Well, okay. But no one’s perfect, mom!
Mom: That’s not true. I am perfect!
Me: Uh…okay.
Looking back at that moment, I’m pretty sure that my mom had no idea about the impact of the words she chose to utter at that moment. Maybe she meant to impress upon me the importance of hard work and perseverance, something that has been trumpeted by Amy Chua and caricatured by the Tiger Mom meme. Or maybe as a recent immigrant to the US, she didn’t really understand the meaning of “perfect,” as the English words were still quite new to her ears and tongue. Anyway, years later as a teenager, I confronted her with the question of whether or not she thought she was perfect, and she said, “Of course not. I make mistakes all the time!”
But for seven-year-old me, the damage was done. The lesson seared onto my brain was: “Avoid making mistakes at all costs!” Because you will look foolish. Because people will judge you. Because if you make a mistake, you will fail me, you will fail your family, and you will fail at life. And it’ll hurt.
That cut deeply into my identity, and over the years, it had an outsized influence on my worldview, my outlook on life, the choices I made, and how I viewed myself as a leader.
As I reflect on my CoreAlign Generative Fellowship experience this year, the most important challenges I learned about innovation are: 1.) Facing vulnerability head on, 2.) developing a sense of resiliency for myself in the face of failure or criticism, and 3.) learning how to lean into risk and failure.
These challenges all work stiff muscles – and require that I continue to practice, exercise, and train myself. Given my years of bad habits, how do I shift myself from a life-long operating system of “perfectionism” as the source of my identity and power, to one of “vulnerability and failure?” And as one mere individual within the reproductive health, rights, and justice movement – how can a personal shift toward opening myself up to vulnerability, failure, and risk generate something different, in service to the broader movement?
When I began my fellowship last February, I had thought my CoreAlign project would provide a solution to the cacophonous dialogue and lack of understanding of health as a human right in the US. Why was universal access to health care not a popularly understood concept, despite the Affordable Care Act’s passage? Throughout its torturous journey into law, the concept of health as a basic human right was seldom a central part of the public discourse; conversations were totally politicized and polarized. At worst, health care and the ACA were villainously characterized as a communist construct, and at best, it was a market-based solution that continued to leave vulnerable communities out the system. How could my project give advocates better tools for a broader understanding of the right to health in the US?
I had envisioned compiling some kind of toolkit, fact sheet, or website that would capture comprehensive definitions, practical examples of health as a human right taken from international movements, and explaining how it could be operationalized in the US by advocates, organizations, as well as everyday people. That was my perfectionist side , laying it all out.
Over the course of the fellowship year, I’ve truly learned that innovation requires some tense muscles to be worked out, massaged, and maneuvered. Thankfully, innovation is a process that can be learned, and that is what we all did as a Generative Fellowship cohort.
One of the first things I learned was that innovative ideas and solutions don’t spring forth from one’s mind in a “eureka-like” moment. Innovation, from the Latin word, innovare, means to renew or change. Implicit is a process iteration, or spring renewal, getting rid of things, and embracing change.
In other words, failing and getting up. Failing and getting up. Failing and getting up. And at the same time, being resilient enough to be able to take on the failing, the change, and the criticism – either from others or myself (many of us are our own worst critics). This is also what Brené Brown speaks of in her TED talk, The Power of Vulnerability. The power to be perfectly imperfect, and still have a strong sense of worthiness and respect for oneself.
CoreAlign’s design thinking process and the tools provided supported us and our development as innovative leaders. These tools included training on the concept of a minimally viable product (MVP), mindfulness meditation, and strengths-based self-assessments, as ways to build our own resiliency, self-awareness, and leadership. Thank you Marcus Buckingham for letting me know that I’m a Pioneer/Advisor. My MBTI told me something similar.
The other important thing I learned is that gratitude and a resilient mindset are closely linked. One reinforces the other. So one of my favorite resiliency strategies I adopted early last spring was to create a gratitude box where I dropped post-it sized notes of thanks. To myself. Just because.
Another strategy I started and have continued this fall is a one-day-a-week hand-written thank you card to a special someone person in my life that I felt very thankful for that week. I start off the day by writing the card, stamp it, and then walk to the mailbox to drop off. The emails, postcards, and letters I received in return are an incredible source of resiliency for my mind, body, and soul.
As reproductive health, rights and justice movement leaders, we are often drained by the challenges and intractable issues that compel us to do the work we feel so passionate about in the first place. CoreAlign’s innovation tools were not only incredible applicable and helpful to the redesign of my project, but also to my life. Definitely the seven-year old within me is jumping up and down with excitement as I continue on this journey. As for my project, I’ve honed in on the MVP idea of conversation starters about health as a human right – inspired by the LGBTQ movement’s success of connecting personal everyday stories to the political strategy of marriage equality.
Three decades and a CoreAlign Generative Fellowship later, I’m still trying to rewire my perfectionist brain. Thankfully, I’m slowly but surely working it out.
Ellen Liu is a second generation Taiwanese immigrant whose parents inspired her to work in the field of women’s rights and social justice philanthropy.
