Dismantling the belief:
The key to overcoming any emotional pain caused by this belief is to self-reflect and define what exactly you mean by “flawed.” In several cases, people use this phrase to label the fact that they’re imperfect in some way, which is probably based on failing to meet a standard they think they should meet.
Unless you have evidence to suggest otherwise, are there any perfect humans? If not, is everyone not, by definition, flawed? The solution to dismantling this belief is to understand whether you think you should feel bad about yourself because of an imperfection. If you do, you think imperfection is unacceptable which is at odds with the reality that all humans are imperfect. This thinking also means that whenever you recognize “flaw” or imperfection about yourself, you will feel bad.
If you instead decide and recognize that yes, you are imperfect and as a result, will make mistakes or have imperfect characteristics but choose to be ok with this imperfection despite disliking it, you will overcome this belief. Doing this means you longer view any kind of imperfection as unaccepatable or as a reason to feel bad.
Choosing to be ok with imperfection doesn’t mean you like the imperfection and won’t do the work to change in some way. Choosing to be okay with that reality just means you can evaluate yourself and choose change with no or minimal emotional pain, which is likely a way of living you’d prefer.
The I’m Flawed belief is extremely similar to the psychology of “something is wrong with me.” We encourage you to read or review the dismantling of that belief if you’d like.
What to do when people think you’re flawed
Those people probably don’t know what they mean by thinking you’re flawed because if they did, they would know that they, too, are flawed since they are human being, not God. Keep this in mind when you come across these people. They may lack this awareness and may not have done the inner work to know that calling people “flawed” rarely means anything useful.
There are benefits to recognizing your “flaws”
Seeing our flaws often hasbenefits. It can help us see what aspects of ourselves we’d like to change to reach end goals we have. For example, when Michael Jordan graduated high school and entered college in North Carolina to play basketball, he recognized that he wasn’t skilled enough to dominate the game like he did in highschool. He embraced that fact and told his coach that he wanted to do everything possible to upskill himself so he could be one of the best players on the court, and he did just that. Had he ignored his ‘flaws” because he wanted to believe he was already great, or if the emotional pain of knowing he wasn’t as impactful as he would’ve liked was too much, he might’ve not developed the abilities that helped him achieve the accolades he collected.
Costs (often unseen) of this belief:
Social anxiety, self-doubt, low confidence and low self-esteem, no desire to have fun, burnout, inability to be present, judgmental to self and others, never happy, constant fight or flight, fearful of losing idealistic outcomes, fear of making mistakes and learning
Problems this belief can give rise to:
- Intelligence Insecurity
- Social Anxiety
- Feeling inadequate
- I’m not good enough
- Low self-esteem
- Low self-worth
- Low self-confidence
Have something to add?
If there is anything here you think can be improved to help someone dismantle this belief we’d love to hear it. We may update this page with your input.
Looking for more?
If you’d like to understand this belief more or want additional help dismantling it submit a request for help for additional support. Get help with your unique situation.
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