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Brené Brown

The Gifts of Imperfection: Let Go of Who You Think You're Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are Paperback – October 4, 2010

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'This important book is about the lifelong journey from 'What will people think?' to 'I am enough.' Brown's unique ability to blend original research with honest storytelling makes reading The Gifts of Imperfection like having a long, uplifting conversation with a very wise friend who offers compassion, wisdom, and great advice.'
—Harriet Lerner, New York Times best-selling author of The Dance of Anger and The Dance of Connection

'Brené Brown courageously tackles the dark emotions that get in the way of leading a fuller life; read this book and let some of that courage rub off on you.'
—Daniel H. Pink, New York Times best-selling author of A Whole New Mind

'Courage, compassion, and connection: Through Brené's research, observations, and guidance, these three little words can open the door to amazing change in your life.'
—Ali Edwards, author of Life Artist

In The Gifts of Imperfection, Brené Brown, a leading expert on shame, authenticity, and belonging, shares ten guideposts on the power of Wholehearted living—a way of engaging with the world from a place of worthiness.

Each day we face a barrage of images and messages from society and the media telling us who, what, and how we should be. We are led to believe that if we could only look perfect and lead perfect lives, we'd no longer feel inadequate. So most of us perform, please, and perfect, all the while thinking, What if I can't keep all of these balls in the air? Why isn't everyone else working harder and living up to my expectations? What will people think if I fail or give up? When can I stop proving myself?

In The Gifts of Imperfection, Brené Brown, Ph.D., a leading expert on shame, authenticity and belonging, shares what she's learned from a decade of research on the power of Wholehearted Living – a way of engaging with the world from a place of worthiness.

In her ten guideposts, Brown engages our minds, hearts, and spirits as she explores how we can cultivate 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, And to go to bed at night thinking, Yes, I am sometimes afraid, but I am also brave. And, yes, I am imperfect and vulnerable, but that doesn't change the truth that I am worthy of love and belonging.

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260 pages
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English
Publisher

Hazelden Publishing
Publication date

October 4, 2010
Dimensions

6 x 0.5 x 9 inches
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9781592858491
ISBN-13

978-1592858491
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Popular Highlights in this book

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Authenticity is the daily practice of letting go of who we think we’re supposed to be and embracing who we are.
Highlighted by 36,428 Kindle readers
If we want to fully experience love and belonging, we must believe that we are worthy of love and belonging.
Highlighted by 32,251 Kindle readers
Shame needs three things to grow out of control in our lives: secrecy, silence, and judgment.
Highlighted by 27,381 Kindle readers

From the Publisher

Named one of the "five books that will actually change your outlook on life" by Forbes.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Brené Brown, Ph.D., L.M.S.W., is a member of the research faculty at the University of Houston Graduate College of Social Work, where she studies how shame affects the way people live, love, parent, work, and build relationships. She is the author of I Thought It Was Just Me (but it isn't): Telling the Truth About Perfectionism, Inadequacy, and Power, and the new book The Gift of Imperfection: Let Go of Who You Think You're Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Preface

Once you see a pattern, you can’t un-see it. Trust me, I’ve tried. But when the same truth keeps repeating itself, it’s hard to pretend that it’s just a coincidence. For example, no matter how hard I try to convince myself that I can function on six hours of sleep, anything less than eight hours leaves me impatient, anxious, and foraging for carbohydrates. It’s a pattern.I also have a terrible procrastination pattern: I always put off writing by reorganizing my entire house and spending way too much time and money buying office supplies and organizing systems. Every single time.

One reason it’s impossible to un-see trends is that our minds are engineered to seek out patterns and to assign meaning to them. Humans are a meaning-making species. And, for better or worse, my mind is actually fine-tuned to do this. I spent years training for it, and now it’s how I make my living.

As a researcher, I observe human behavior so I can identify and name the subtle connections, relationships, and patterns that help us make meaning of our thoughts, behaviors, and feelings. I love what I do. Pattern hunting is wonderful work and, in fact, throughout my career, my attempts at un-seeing were strictly reserved for my personal life and those humbling vulnerabilities that I loved to deny. That all changed in November 2006, when the research that fills these pages smacked me upside the head. For the first time in my career, I was desperate to un-see my own research.

Up until that point, I had dedicated my career to studying difficult emotions like shame, fear, and vulnerability. I had written academic pieces on shame, developed a shame-resilience curriculum for mental health and addictions professionals, and written a book about shame resilience called I Thought It Was Just Me.

In the process of collecting thousands of stories from diverse men and women who lived all over the country--ranging in age from eighteen to eighty-seven--I saw new patterns that I wanted to know more about. Yes, we all struggle with shame and the fear of not being enough. And, yes, many of us are afraid to let our true selves be seen and known. But in this huge mound of data there was also story after story of men and women who were living these amazing and inspiring lives.

I heard stories about the power of embracing imperfection and vulnerability. I learned about the inextricable connection between joy and gratitude, and how things that I take for granted, like rest and play, are as vital to our health as nutrition and exercise. These research participants trusted themselves, and they talked about authenticity and love and belonging in a way that was completely new to me.

I wanted to look at these stories as a whole, so I grabbed a file and a Sharpie and wrote the first word that came to my mind on the tab: Wholehearted. I wasn’t sure what it meant yet, but I knew that these stories were about people living and loving with their whole hearts. I had a lot of questions about Wholeheartedness. What did these folks value? How did they create all of this resilience in their lives? What were their main concerns and how did they resolve or address them? Can anyone create a Wholehearted life? What does it take to cultivate what we need? What gets in the way?

As I started analyzing the stories and looking for re-occurring themes, I realized that the patterns generally fell into one of two columns; for simplicity sake, I first labeled these Do and Don’t. The Do column was brimming with words like worthiness, rest, play, trust, faith, intuition, hope, authenticity, love, belonging, joy, gratitude, and creativity. The Don’t column was dripping with words like perfection, numbing, certainty, exhaustion, self-sufficiency, being cool, fitting in, judgment, and scarcity.

I gasped the first time I stepped back from the poster paper and took it all in. It was the worst kind of sticker shock. I remember mumbling, “No. No. No. How can this be?”

Even though I wrote the lists, I was shocked to read them. When I code data, I go into deep researcher mode. My only focus is on accurately capturing what I heard in the stories. I don’t think about how I would say something, only how the research participants said it. I don’t think about what an experience would mean to me, only what it meant to the person who told me about it.

I sat in the red chair at my breakfast room table and stared at these two lists for a very long time. My eyes wandered up and down and across. I remember at one point I was actually sitting there with tears in my eyes and with my hand across my mouth, like someone had just delivered bad news.

And, in fact, it was bad news. I thought I’d find that Wholehearted people were just like me and doing all of the same things I was doing: working hard, following the rules, doing it until I got it right, always trying to know myself better, raising my kids exactly by the books...After studying tough topics like shame for a decade, I truly believed that I deserved confirmation that I was “living right.” But here’s the tough lesson that I learned that day (and every day since):

How much we know and understand ourselves is critically important, but there is something that is even more essential to living a Wholehearted life: loving ourselves.

Knowledge is important, but only if we’re being kind and gentle with ourselves as we work to discover who we are. Wholeheartedness is as much about embracing our tenderness and vulnerability as it is about developing knowledge and claiming power.

And perhaps the most painful lesson of that day hit me so hard that it took my breath away: It was clear from the data that we cannot give our children what we don’t have. Where we are on our journey of living and loving with our whole hearts is a much stronger indicator of parenting success than anything we can learn from how-to books.

This journey is equal parts heart work and head work, and as I sat there on that dreary November day, it was clear to me that I was lacking in my own heart work.

I finally stood up, grabbed my marker off the table, drew a line under the Don’t list, and then wrote the word me under the line. My struggles seemed to be perfectly characterized by the sum total of the list. I folded my arms tightly across my chest, sunk deep down into my chair, and thought, This is just great. I’m living straight down the shit list.

I walked around the house for about twenty minutes trying to un-see and undo everything that had just unfolded, but I couldn’t make the words go away. I couldn’t go back, so I did the next best thing: I folded all of the poster sheets into neat squares and tucked them into a Rubbermaid tub that fit nicely under my bed, next to my Christmas wrap. I wouldn’t open that tub again until March of 2008.

Next, I got myself a really good therapist and began a year of serious soul work that would forever change my life. Diana, my therapist, and I still laugh about my first visit. Diana, who is a therapist to many therapists, started with the requisite, “So what’s going on?” I pulled out the Do list and matter-of-factly said, “I need more of the things on this list. Some specific tips and tools would be helpful. Nothing deep. No childhood crap or anything.”

It was a long year. I lovingly refer to it on my blog as the 2007 [Breakdown] Spiritual Awakening. It felt like a textbook breakdown to me, but Diana called it a spiritual awakening. I think we were both right. In fact, I’m starting to question if you can have one without the other. Of course, it’s not a coincidence that this unraveling happened in November 2006. The stars were perfectly aligned for a breakdown: I was raw from being newly sugar and flour free, I was days away from my birthday (always a contemplative time for me), I was burned out from work, and I was right on the cusp of my midlife unraveling.

People may call what happens at midlife “a crisis,” but it’s not. 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.

Midlife is certainly one of the great unraveling journeys, but there are others that happen to us over the course of our lives:

marriage
divorce
becoming a parent
recovery
moving
an empty nest
retiring
experiencing loss or trauma
working in a soul-sucking jobThe universe is not short on wake-up calls. We’re just quick to hit the snooze button.

As it turned out, the work I had to do was messy and deep. I slogged through it until one day, exhausted and with mud still wet and dripping off of my traveling shoes, I realized, “Oh, my God. I feel different. I feel joyful and real. I’m still afraid, but I also feel really brave. Something has changed--I can feel it in my bones.”

I was healthier, more joyful, and more grateful than I had ever felt. I felt calmer and grounded, and significantly less anxious. I had rekindled my creative life, reconnected with my family and friends in a new way, and most important, felt truly comfortable in my own skin for the first time in my life.

I learned how to worry more about how I felt and less about “what people might think.” I was setting new boundaries and began to let go of my need to please, perform, and perfect. I started saying no rather than sure (and being resentful and pissed off later). I began to say “Oh, hell yes!” rather than “Sounds fun, but I have lots of work to do” or “I’ll do that when I’m _________ (thinner, less busy, better prepared).”

As I worked through my own Wholehearted journey with Diana, I read close to forty books, including every spiritual awakening memoir I could get my hands on. They were incredibly helpful guides, but I still craved a guidebook that could offer inspiration, resources, and basically serve as a soul traveler’s companion of sorts.

One day, as I stared at the tall pile of books precariously stacked on my nightstand, it hit me! I want to tell this story in a memoir. I’ll tell the story of how a cynical, smart-ass academic became every bit of the stereotype that she spent her entire adult life ridiculing. I’ll fess up about how I became the middle-aged, recovering, health-conscious, creative, touchy-feely spirituality-seeker who spends days contemplating things like grace, love, gratitude, creativity, authenticity, and is happier than I imagined possible. I’ll call it Wholehearted.

I also remember thinking, Before I write the memoir, I need to use this research to write a guidebook on Wholehearted living! By mid-2008, I had filled three huge tubs with notebooks, journals, and mounds of data. I had also done countless hours of new research. I had everything I needed, including a passionate desire to write the book that you’re holding in your hands.

On that fateful November day when the list appeared and I sunk into the realization that I wasn’t living and loving with my whole heart, I wasn’t totally convinced. Seeing the list wasn’t enough to fully believe in it. I had to dig very deep and make the conscious choice to believe...to believe in myself and the possibility of living a different life. A lot of questioning, countless tears, and a huge collection of joyful moments later, believing has helped me see.

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Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ 159285849X
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Hazelden Publishing; 1st edition (October 4, 2010)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 260 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 9781592858491
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1592858491
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 7 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6 x 0.5 x 9 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #5,038 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #38 in Creativity (Books)
- #64 in Self-Esteem (Books)
- #74 in Spiritual Self-Help (Books)

Customer Reviews:
29,071 ratings

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Brené Brown

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Dr. Brené Brown is a research professor at the University of Houston, where she holds the Huffington Foundation Endowed Chair at the Graduate College of Social Work. She also holds the position of visiting professor in management at the University of Texas at Austin McCombs School of Business.

Brené has spent the past two decades studying courage, vulnerability, shame, and empathy. She is the author of six #1 New York Times best sellers and is the host of two award-winning Spotify podcasts, Unlocking Us and Dare to Lead.

Brené’s books have been translated into more than 30 languages, and her titles include Atlas of the Heart, Dare to Lead, Braving the Wilderness, Rising Strong, Daring Greatly, and The Gifts of Imperfection. With Tarana Burke, she co-edited the best-selling anthology You Are Your Best Thing: Vulnerability, Shame Resilience, and the Black Experience.

Brené’s TED talk on the Power of Vulnerability is one of the top five most-viewed TED talks in the world, with over 50 million views. Brené is the first researcher to have a filmed lecture on Netflix, and in March 2022, she launched a new show on HBO Max that focuses on her latest book, Atlas of the Heart.

Brené spends most of her time working in organizations around the world, helping develop braver leaders and more-courageous cultures. She lives in Houston, Texas, with her husband, Steve. They have two children, Ellen and Charlie, and a weird Bichon named Lucy.

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ComfortSeeker

Wasn't a good fit for me at all

Reviewed in the United States on January 15, 2018

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I had a really hard time getting into this one. I struggle a lot with feeling inadequate and not being "good enough" for others. I'm not married, don't have children, and it seemed that all she was talking about was mothers who struggle with not being able to do it all. Wasn't a good fit for me at all.

960 people found this helpful

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Clawdette

Awful!

Reviewed in the United States on March 13, 2019

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What a trite, badly written, unhelpful book! I can't believe the author has a college degree and is a popular speaker. It's as though a Valley Girl has gotten her hands on 500 self-help books and cobbled them together into one. I could barely read it. If you know that most people in this culture suffer from poor self-esteem and that "self-hatred" seems to be an epidemic, looking at the culture itself might be a better way to go. The Dalai Lama was shocked when Western teachers asked so many questions about poor self esteem and inadequacy, unhappiness and insecurity. It's a particularly Western problem. This author has a major problem with overweening ego which is NOT the same thing as real self-confidence. So much defensiveness, so much self-promotion, so little real insight. This book is a big waste of money and time.

439 people found this helpful

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Brian Johnson | Optimize

This book is awesome.

Reviewed in the United States on December 1, 2016

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“Wholehearted living is about engaging in our lives from a place of worthiness. It 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. 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.

Wholehearted living is not a onetime choice. It is a process. In fact, I believe it’s the journey of a lifetime. My goal is to bring awareness and clarity to the constellation of choices that lead to Wholeheartedness and to share what I’ve learned from many, many people who have dedicated themselves to living and loving with their whole hearts.

Before embarking on any journey, including this one, it’s important to talk about what we need to bring along. What does it take to live and love from a place of worthiness? How do we embrace imperfection? How do we cultivate what we need and let go of the things that are holding us back? The answers to all of these questions are courage, compassion, and connection—the tools we need to work our way through our journey.”

~ Brené Brown from The Gifts of Imperfection

Reading Brené Brown’s books makes you feel safe.

Well, actually, they make you feel a little freaked out (laughing) as you look into some areas you may not like to look—like vulnerability and shame—but, ultimately, they make you feel more of the three qualities she advocates (and models) so powerfully: courage, compassion, and connection. And, in the process, like you’ve come home to yourself.

And that’s awesome. :)

Her work as a shame and vulnerability researcher led her to discover people who had figured out the keys to shame resilience and what she calls Wholehearted living. (Think: half-hearted kindasorta going thru the motions vs. WHOLEhearted, all-in joyful living!)
This book walks us through the ten “guideposts” of Wholehearted living in. It’s a quick-reading, fun, inspiring and wise little book that I highly recommend.

Let’s explore some of the Big Ideas:

1. Dos and Don’ts - Of Wholehearted living.
2. Guideposts - Ten of them.
3. Practicing - Is where it’s at.
4. Ordinary Courage - Requires vulnerability.
5. A Deep Sense of Love - And belonging is required.

Here’s to doing the little things (diligently, patiently, persistently and playfully) as we cultivate courage, compassion, and connection that help us live Wholeheartedly and put our soul in a wonderfully good mood!

More goodness— including PhilosophersNotes on 300+ books in our *OPTIMIZE* membership program. Find out more at brianjohnson . me.

187 people found this helpful

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Melodi

This woman has no idea what she is talking about.

Reviewed in the United States on April 14, 2019

Verified Purchase

From the fact that she seems to believe that the experience of a middle class white mom is universal to the part where she states something that is just not considered true in the field of psychology, Dr. Brene Brown proves she is absolutely clueless about humanity. This book will do nothing but waste your time reading long-winded, irrelevant anecdotes about Brown's life that read like passages from a failed memoir and then try to convince you that who you are is not your behaviors and choices, despite the fact that the field of psychology supports the idea that who you are informs your behaviors and choices and therefore who you are is defined by them. This rhetoric she teaches leads to extremely dangerous thought processes and consequences like people not holding themselves or others accountable for their actions because "their actions aren't who they are" and why should they apologize or correct a behavior that doesn't define them. Do not buy this book. Buy an actual workbook designed for mental health purposes.

214 people found this helpful

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W. Goodwin

Wonderful and Beautiful

Reviewed in the United States on January 20, 2018

Verified Purchase

Mrs. Brown is truly a story teller. I woke up at 2 am not feeling well from a cold, but emotionally is where I felt the worst. A few days of passing and I had enough of this feeling of self doubt. I may have quit if it was just pure research, but her countless stories of her own struggles were so easy to identify with. I'm just thankful I'm sick so my roommates couldn't hear a grown man's sniffling. I'm really kidding, I don't actually mind telling people I cry. Just thought it would be funny to include a piece on shame.

For years I've used healing others in order to prove my own worth. I've dated purely in a way that I must help and heal them in order to feel my own place as worthwhile in the relationship. It doesn't allow me to get close because I'm lacking in authenticity and vulnerability. I may have felt that I was showing these people their worth, but really I wasn't showing them love. The part on faith will be hard for me I've always loved certainty and with emotional distant parents I've always held expectations of people leaving me. This book laid bare my struggles and I thank Brene Brown and my wonderful therapist for making it easy to unpack all of this in a digestible manner. Perhaps I'll finally get passed my compassion fatigue and truly love. One day at a time.

75 people found this helpful

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Top reviews from other countries

C. Davis

Ugly use of language

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 9, 2018

Verified Purchase

This was recommended in a feature about the menopause and, as I'm still having a few symptoms (though not nearly as many as when I was perimenopausal) I thought it might be helpful. After all, we look - and often feel - less than perfect when our hormones are unsettled and our health is compromised. Unfortunately this book didn't help at all. The message seemed to be `love yourself' but we've all heard this so often. The examples were dire and she seemed like a woman on the edge, crying because someone didn't like her photograph. The most jarring part of this short book, however, was the ugly use of language. She said things `sucked' and `were sucky' and talked about `pissing'. There were also lots of `oh, man,' style comments. The writer is a university lecturer so presumably has access to a richer vocabulary - I can only assume that she was trying to appeal to her students and get down with the kids! I couldn't bring myself to pass this book on to charity as reading it is such a waste of time so I put it in my recycling bin.

58 people found this helpful

Bookman

Good for little bumps on the road not for real problems/issues

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 29, 2019

Verified Purchase

This book was recommended to me by my counsellor during a difficult period of my life, however I couldn't relate to her problems described in the book. One of her biggest problems described was being stressed because she had to give a TED talk to a room filled with CEOs and other speakers were world class speakers and she felt so inadequate. Really? If all people only had problems like that. Maybe it is only for middle class people type problems who want to improve their life from good to better but it surely wasn't for me. This book made me feeling worse.

39 people found this helpful

nusaybah saad

No rainbow and unicorn crap.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 28, 2018

Verified Purchase

This is the first self-help book I thoroughly enjoyed. Not only does the author define concepts like guilt, shame, self-worth she also shows you how to deal with and practically apply those concepts in real life (which most self help books lack). It also tells you how to lead a positive life without all the unicorn and rainbow crap you see in other self-help books.

It's a good book to go back to, because everytime you read it something new sinks in! Like an 'ahaa' moment.

I would definitly reccomend this purchase.

34 people found this helpful

Lochside

Good observations

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on November 30, 2017

Verified Purchase

Initially I did not like Brene Brown's style of writing - it seemed too "gushy" at first - but I persisted and found the depth in her observations and comments. I liked her style of summarising "takeaways" and now find myself regularly returning to her observations for behavioural reminders.

32 people found this helpful

Mr D.W.Garwood

Ideal for perfectionists! Not a self-help book

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 11, 2021

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Really enjoyed reading Brene's book, have since purchased another. Having watched her TED talk on Vulnerability, I was keen to learn more. Highly recommended read for anyone looking to live a more intentional life and understand and focus on what matters in life. Different to self-help books, this is written in a style of a research summary, rather than recommending actions to take in order to be more focused, for example. If you enjoy this, I'd recommend Fear Less by Dr Pippa Grange as a deep dive into why fear is driving our decisions and behavior towards others.

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The Gifts of Imperfection: Let Go of Who You Think You're Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are Paperback – October 4, 2010

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Buy new:

$14.89

FREE delivery: Thursday, Aug 25 on orders over $25.00 shipped by Amazon.

Ships from: Amazon.com

Sold by: Amazon.com

Buy used:

$6.78