The Gifts of Imperfection Summary 3

Chapters 7, 10, 12-13: Foster Happiness and Joy In this chapter of the guide, we’ll explore Brown’s final four strategies for living Wholeheartedly. All of the following practices not only facilitate Wholehearted living but can also help you to find either happiness or joy more broadly: Find meaningful work that uses your gifts and talents. Embrace rest and play. Practice gratitude. Laugh, sing, and dance. Note that Brown conceives happiness and joy as two distinct emotions, as we’ll discuss when we explore practicing gratitude. Find Meaningful Work That Uses Your Gifts and Talents One strategy for finding happiness and living Wholeheartedly is finding meaningful work. In Brown’s view, meaningful work is work that enables you to use your gifts and talents. This work might be paid work (although Brown acknowledges that finding a job that perfectly fits your skillset is difficult). However, it doesn’t have to be: Meaningful work can be anything from parenting, to volunteering, to engaging in a hobby. According to Brown, failing to find meaningful work that uses your gifts and talents can trigger numerous negative emotions, like shame and anger. In contrast, finding meaningful work can provide such benefits as increased happiness and fulfillment, increased sense of purpose and, if you’re spiritual or religious, a feeling of being closer to your higher power. (Shortform note: Brown doesn’t fully explain how finding meaningful work can increase your sense of connection to a higher power, but her discussion suggests that this connection deepens because, through your meaningful work, you’re making the most of the gifts and talents that this higher power gave you and fulfilling its purpose for you.) Meaningful Work and Worthiness In this section, Brown doesn’t explicitly address how finding meaningful work that uses your gifts and talents (or not doing so) can impact your worthiness. However, she implies that not finding meaningful work affects your worthiness negatively. By not incorporating your talents into your daily life through such work, you may believe that you’re not contributing your full potential to the world, making you feel a sense of worthlessness. Conversely, each time you engage in meaningful work, you’ll be reminded that you’re good at something: the gift or talent that this work uses. This will increase your sense of worthiness. An Alternative Perspective on Defining and Finding Meaningful Work Brown isn’t the only author to try to define what makes work meaningful. For instance, in Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell argues that meaningful work must have three components: It must be complex: for instance, involve enough tasks of a varied enough nature to be intellectually and creatively engaging. It must give the worker autonomy: in other words, control over what they do. There must be a clear positive correlation between hard work and reward: In other words, the harder a person works, the greater their reward must be. In Gladwell’s view, even work that we might assume to be tedious—for instance, working in a manufacturing plant, producing the same plastic items every day—can bring happiness and fulfillment if it incorporates these three elements. In The Gifts of Imperfection, Brown states that Gladwell’s concept of meaningful work is compatible with Wholehearted Living. However, it’s worth noting that the two authors’ definitions of this type of work differ. For instance, Gladwell doesn’t mention using your gifts and talents as a key component of meaningful work, while Brown does. Furthermore, Gladwell mainly discusses meaningful work in the context of paid employment. In contrast, Brown presents meaningful work as any work that brings you meaning—paid or otherwise. Barriers to Engaging in Meaningful Work During her discussion of meaningful work, Brown touches on a major barrier you may face when trying to engage in it: self-doubt. Self-doubt can take many forms. Brown notes that some people doubt they have gifts and talents that are “good enough” to use in meaningful work. (For example, you might believe that you’re better than average at cooking, but not good enough to become a professional chef.) Others doubt that they have any gifts and talents at all. These self-doubtful attitudes hinder meaningful work because if you don’t believe you have gifts and talents that are worth using, you won’t try to find meaningful work that uses them. Another common doubt is wondering whether pursuing paid meaningful work is the “right” choice, particularly if such work is low-paid or carries little prestige. You might worry that people will look down on you for engaging in such work, even if it makes you happy. In Brown’s view, a powerful way to overcome these self-doubts is to first, accept that they exist: We can’t address things that we don’t acknowledge. Then, commit the doubts to paper: Write them out in full. Brown believes that writing your doubts down will give you a clear opportunity to challenge them and remove their power over you. To challenge the doubt that you have any gifts or talents, you might ask yourself why you feel like you’re talentless. Is it because a bully once told you so? If so, why should you listen to that bully? They weren’t telling the truth—they were just trying to hurt you. In all likelihood, you do have gifts and talents that the bully simply chose to ignore. Other Strategies for Overcoming Self-Doubt In addition to Brown, many other authors have tried to answer the question of how to combat selfdoubt. For example, in The Secret, Rhonda Byrne suggests replacing self-doubtful thoughts with positive ones such as “I can do this.” In the context of finding meaningful work, you might say to yourself, “I do have gifts and talents that I can channel into meaningful work,” or “My meaningful work is worthy and worth doing, regardless of how much it pays.” Jen Sincero, author of You Are a Badass, also cites replacing negative thoughts as an effective strategy to combat self-doubt (as well as other unhealthy thought patterns like guilt and self-loathing). Other strategies she suggests include repeating positive, self-praising affirmations and avoiding using self-deprecating humor. For instance, if you constantly joke with friends that you’re talentless or have no gifts, stop doing this—the “jokes” are probably negatively affecting your confidence more than you think. Finally, Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook COO and author of Lean In, suggests reminding yourself of your past achievements when you feel self-doubt creeping in. This will challenge your belief that you can’t succeed or that you’re talentless. If you doubt that your talent is “good enough” to use in meaningful work, you might remind yourself of a time when you used it successfully—for example, a talented singer might remind themselves of a time when they performed and received positive feedback. Embrace Rest and Play Brown’s next strategy for living Wholeheartedly and finding happiness in the process is embracing rest and play. To begin, let’s explore the definition and importance of each of these practices. What Is Rest, and Why Is It Important? When Brown refers to rest, she means getting enough sleep to feel refreshed. She argues that to live Wholeheartedly, you must respect your body’s need to regenerate. According to Brown, rest is important because sleep deprivation can have serious health effects: Depression, diabetes, and heart disease are just three of the conditions that the Centers for Disease Control link to lack of sleep. Furthermore, the drowsiness that comes from getting too little sleep can have negative consequences. For example, you may lack the energy to complete your work tasks to a high standard, causing your job performance to suffer. Other Risks of Sleep Deprivation As Brown notes, not getting enough sleep can have a severe impact on your physical and mental health. Neuroscientist and psychologist Matthew Walker expands on this topic in his book Why We Sleep. Walker notes that, on top of the issues that Brown mentions, sleep deprivation may also: Inhibit your emotional control, making you cranky and more prone to taking risks Contribute to the development of Alzheimer’s disease Reduce fertility in both men and women Weaken your immune system Increase levels of suicidal ideation in teenagers As Brown highlights, despite these clear negative effects of lack of sleep, many adults still don’t get enough rest each night. We’ll explore Brown’s theory as to why this is shortly. What Is Play, and Why Is It Important? Brown defines play as doing things that have no real purpose. We do these things simply because we enjoy them, not because we’re hoping to achieve something. What constitutes “play” is unique to the individual. It could be reading for pleasure, playing sports, playing video games, painting, or watching a movie. Brown believes that embracing play is important for several reasons. Research has shown that it increases your creativity, empathy, social skills, and general happiness. Likewise, refusing to engage in play can lead to depression. Dr. Stuart Brown’s Research on Play: Play’s Other Qualities When defining play and discussing its benefits, Brown cites the research of Dr. Stuart Brown, a psychiatrist and play researcher who founded the National Institute for Play. In his book Play: How it Shapes the Brain, Opens the Imagination, and Invigorates the Soul, Dr. Brown claims that play has seven key qualities. In The Gifts of Imperfection, Brené Brown only mentions the first of these qualities: play being purposeless. However, according to Dr. Brown, play is also something that: We’re inherently attracted to We engage in voluntarily We want to keep doing once we’ve started and do again in the future Furthermore, play alters our experience of time: We lose ourselves in the moment and become unaware of how much time is passing. Play triggers a lack of self-consciousness, too. When we’re playing, we lose sight of other people’s opinions of us and our activities. Finally, play has what Dr. Brown calls “improvisational potential”: It helps us to innovate and develop new ideas. For instance, a child playing with building blocks may improvise and innovate a new way to build a toy house out of the blocks. A Barrier to Rest and Play: The Pressure to Be Productive Brown argues that despite the clear benefits of embracing play and rest, many of us still fail to do so. She believes that this is because we live in a culture where work is important above all else. Society teaches us that we need to be purposeful and productive at all times—and play and rest don’t fit these criteria. Play is all about doing things with no real purpose, and rest is unproductive by definition: You can’t be productive if you’re asleep. Brown notes that bowing to societal pressure to be purposeful and productive all the time not only prevents you from enjoying play and rest but also impacts your worthiness. If you devote all of your energy to chasing achievements and accomplishments, you may start to think that you’re only “good enough” if you’ve spent all of your being productive and working towards your goals. This ties your self-worth to what you’ve done, not who you are, and as we learned in Chapter 1, this attitude is incompatible with true worthiness. So, how can you overcome the pressure to be productive and embrace play and rest? Brown recommends challenging the notion that you must be productive all the time and prioritizing play and rest above “getting stuff done.” In reality, playing and resting will probably improve your productivity in the long run. You’re more likely to focus and produce high-quality work if you’re feeling happy, refreshed, and relaxed. Rest, Play, and Increased Productivity: The Research Research and neuroscience back up Brown’s assertion that getting enough rest will aid your productivity, not harm it. Getting plenty of sleep gives your brain a chance to build and strengthen neural pathways, helping you to learn and remember new information. Research indicates that various other brain functions, such as decision-making, focus, and problem-solving, are also enhanced when you get lots of sleep—and these are all processes that will help you to perform at your best in the workplace. Furthermore, sacrificing rest for work can lead to various negative effects. Research indicates that people who work for too long find it harder to be creative, suffer from increased stress, and see a reduction in their overall work performance. Research also supports the idea that engaging in play can boost productivity: In fact, one study found that engaging in a playful activity increased the subsequent productivity of participants by 20%. Some researchers have suggested that play can enhance workplace productivity by encouraging creativity and innovative thinking. Others have highlighted the importance of play in stress reduction: Getting away from your desk and engaging in play can soothe work-related stress, helping you to return to work rejuvenated (and thus more productive). Practice Gratitude and Feel Joy Another strategy for living Wholeheartedly and finding joy in the process is practicing gratitude. According to Brown, this involves frequently making time to recognize all of the things you’re grateful for. You might practice gratitude for the small things, like your breakfast this morning being delicious, or big things, like having a fulfilling job. You could keep a gratitude journal, do a regular gratitude meditation, or verbalize the things you’re grateful for. You might feel that you’re too busy to sit around thinking about all of the things you’re grateful for. However, Brown argues that practicing gratitude doesn’t require a huge time commitment. Even if you just spend two or three minutes each day listing the things you’re grateful for, you’ll still feel the benefits of gratitude. (Shortform note: Even if you can’t make the time to practice gratitude every day, practicing it less frequently will likely have a positive effect. For instance, in one study, high school students who practiced gratitude only once a week felt its effects—in their case, gratitude was found to facilitate healthier eating habits and reduce negative mood.) A Barrier to Gratitude: Fear If practicing gratitude is so effective, why don’t we do it? According to Brown, some people fear being grateful and experiencing joy. She notes that admitting that you’re grateful for things and that they bring you joy often leads to the fear that you’ll lose these things and experience deep emotional pain. You might think that if you avoid gratitude and joy, you’ll avoid this pain, too. You may also believe that practicing gratitude isn’t worth it because the vulnerability to pain it brings is too great. However Brown argues that giving in to fear and shutting out gratitude and joy will only make pain harder to overcome. Allowing yourself to be grateful and joyful even during tough times—or remembering times in the past when you were joyful or grateful—can make your struggle easier to bear. The Benefit of Gratitude: Joy So, what are the benefits of gratitude? Brown highlights one major positive outcome of being grateful: It breeds joy. Brown conceives joy as a deep contentment with life that is specifically brought on by practicing gratitude—for example, the fulfillment you feel when you recognize that you have a satisfying job that you’re deeply grateful for. (In Brown’s eyes, the fact that joy is triggered by gratitude makes it distinct from happiness, which is brought on by specific and short-term circumstances—for example, getting a good appraisal at work.) (Shortform note: Brown seems to be unique in defining joy as a positive emotion specifically linked to practicing gratitude. In fact, the Merriam-Webster dictionary definition of joy seems to fit closer with Brown’s definition of happiness. It describes joy as a positive feeling sparked by things like being fortunate or finding success: short-term circumstances that Brown links to happiness, not joy.) The Other Benefits of Gratitude Feeling joyful may not be the only benefit of practicing gratitude. For instance, Rhonda Byrne, author of The Power, claims that if you practice gratitude, the universe will grant you love and positivity in return: In other words, it will send you more things to be grateful for. For example, if you practice gratitude for a friendship, that friendship will deepen and become stronger, increasing your gratitude for that person even further. Furthermore, Byrne argues that gratitude has a compounding effect: The more gratitude you practice, the more positivity you’ll experience in return. Meanwhile, academic research suggests that gratitude has a wide range of benefits to mental and physical health. One study found that practicing gratitude improved participants’ overall mood and the quality of their sleep. Another study noted that practicing gratitude reduces symptoms of anxiety and depression, possibly because it encourages a mindset of self-compassion rather than selfcriticism: Presumably, practicing gratitude includes being grateful for yourself, too. Note that some research suggests that the mental health benefits of gratitude take time to accrue. For instance, one study found that participants who started practicing gratitude didn’t feel any better after a week but did feel better after four weeks. Furthermore, their mental health had improved even further after 12 weeks. So, if you don’t feel the benefits of gratitude immediately, don’t worry—they’ll come in time. Laugh, Sing, and Dance Brown’s final strategy for living Wholeheartedly and finding happiness is making the time to laugh, sing, and dance. Watch an episode of your favorite comedy show during your lunch break. Sing along to the radio as you drive to work. Even better, find a way to laugh, sing, and dance with other people. The Benefits of Laughing, Singing, and Dancing According to Brown, making time to laugh, sing, and dance has various benefits. She argues that these practices can help you to manage difficult feelings due to the sense of emotional connection they provide. For example, finding a song that matches your sad mood and singing or dancing along will remind you that you’re not alone: Other people have experienced the emotions that you’re struggling with, not least the person who wrote the song. This sense of connection may give you the strength you need to work through your sadness. Furthermore, Brown notes that laughing, singing, and dancing with another person creates a shared emotional experience that strengthens your connection. For example, if you and a friend are singing along to a sad song because you’ve both been through a breakup, you’ll share your heartbreak and feel closer because of it. You’ll also feel true compassion for each other, because you’ll each understand exactly what the other person is going through. The Health Benefits of Laughing, Singing, and Dancing On top of the positive effects that Brown highlights, the acts of laughing, singing, and dancing have many other benefits—not least to our mental and physical health. For instance, research has demonstrated that laughing reduces the number of stress hormones in our blood while also producing endorphins, which can boost mood and help us to fight depression. Laughter may also strengthen the immune system by boosting the activity levels of cells that fight illness. Meanwhile, research has shown that singing has physical health benefits such as improving posture, increasing breathing capacity, and having increased control over breathing. Furthermore, singing is a form of aerobic activity. Engaging in aerobic activity can promote stress reduction and increase the amount of oxygen in the blood (which makes you feel more awake). Singing may have emotional benefits, too—including group singing (for instance, in a choir). In a study that questioned choir members about their experiences of group singing, 75% of respondents stated that being in the choir had helped them emotionally in some way. Finally, dancing is regularly promoted as a form of exercise that can increase your general fitness and assist with weight loss. More specifically, dancing can improve everything from your bone strength, to the health of your lungs, to your balance. It may also improve mental health: One study of mildly depressed teenagers found that engaging in dance therapy improved the participants’ mental wellbeing and decreased their distress levels. The Problem of Self-Consciousness According to Brown, there is one major barrier that can get in the way of laughing, singing, and dancing: self-consciousness, or the fear of others ridiculing, shaming, or judging you if you go against societal ideas of acceptable behavior. As Brown notes, society often expects us to act in a “cool” and controlled manner and not to draw attention to ourselves. Laughter, dance, and song go against these norms: Therefore, they’re often seen as socially unacceptable behaviors, and engaging in them can trigger self-consciousness. Brown explains that a common response to self-consciousness is self-protection. You may refuse to laugh, sing, or dance so that you avoid shame, blame, and judgment. However, according to Brown, taking this path is an act of self-betrayal. You’re going to miss out on all of the benefits of laughter, dancing, and singing: all of the joy, emotional relief, and connection with others that they can bring. Ultimately, Brown recommends that you prioritize your happiness over the opinions of others, and laugh, sing, and dance with careless abandon. Martha Beck and Overcoming Self-Consciousness How can we stop feeling self-conscious? It may seem like a difficult task, especially if you’re shy or lack confidence. However, according to sociologist and life coach Martha Beck, fighting selfconsciousness is possible if you follow certain strategies. Beck argues that asking yourself one simple question—“So?”—can help you to combat selfconsciousness. For example, if you have the self-conscious thought of “People might laugh at me if I dance,” ask yourself, “So?” Asking yourself this question forces you to evaluate the apparent “bad consequences” of dancing. So what if people laugh at you? Do other people’s opinions really matter? Should they really stop you from doing something you love? Arguably not. Realizing this will reduce your self-consciousness and encourage you to dance freely. Beck also suggests “faking it until you make it”—in other words, acting as if you aren’t self-conscious, even when you are. This involves forcing yourself to do the things you’re self-conscious about— in our case, laughing, singing, or dancing—no matter how uncomfortable or terrifying this may feel at first. Beck argues that, when you force yourself to do these things, you’ll find that nothing that bad will actually happen. Not only will people probably not mock you for doing the thing you’re self-conscious about, they probably won’t pay attention to you at all. Therefore, there’s no need to ever feel selfconscious. You can dance like nobody’s watching, because in reality, they’re probably not watching at all. (According to Beck, studies have shown that people are only paying half as much attention to us as we think they are.) Exercise: Find Meaning by Using Your Gifts and Talents Learn how to incorporate your gifts and talents into your working life. Name two or three of your gifts and talents that you’re not currently using in your working life. Describe these gifts and talents in detail. Pick one of the gifts or talents you outlined above. Why do you think you’re not using this gift or talent? What’s stopping you from putting it into action? Consider how you could start to use this gift or talent. Is there a way you could incorporate it into your current job? Could you make a career change that would allow you to use it? Perhaps you could start a “side hustle” based around this gift or talent? After brainstorming, do you feel more confident about your ability to use your talent? Why or why not? Exercise: Practice Gratitude Acknowledge the things you’re grateful for, and learn how to practice gratitude each day. Describe all of the things that you’re grateful for today. (This could include small things, like your coffee this morning being particularly delicious, and big things, like having a loving partner and a fulfilling job.) How has listing the things you’re grateful for made you feel? For example, do you feel joyful and fulfilled? Are you surprised by how much you have to be grateful for? Think about how you could incorporate gratitude practice into your daily life. Choose a method of gratitude that suits your routine best. For instance, could you make time in your day to write down what you’re grateful for? Could you complete a gratitude meditation each morning?