Have you ever noticed how some people can confidently live on their terms?
Social norms never pressure them.
They hardly ever worry about what others think of them.
They’re so comfortable in their skin that nothing sways them from being themselves.
“Becoming Flawesome” by Kristina Mänd-Lakhiani guides you on a journey of radical self-acceptance, embracing imperfections and speaking your truth.
Love yourself fully, including your flaws, so you can show up confidently and authentically every day.
You’ll love Becoming Flawesome: The Key to Living an Imperfectly Authentic Life. In this review of Becoming Flawesome, I’ll go over the details.
Flawesome is a powerful manifesto for anyone looking to embrace their imperfections and unleash their true potential.
It is straightforward and actionable, encouraging readers to stop chasing unattainable perfection and instead celebrate their flaws as part of their unique journey.
Kristina’s book dives deep into the concept of flawsomeness, challenging the societal norms that dictate how we should live, work, and present ourselves.
It emphasizes that true growth comes from vulnerability and authenticity, urging readers to take bold steps toward self-acceptance.
If you’re tired of the polished facade and ready for real transformation, this is your roadmap to becoming you unapologetically.
Kristina Mänd-Lakhiani’s Becoming Flawesome Book
Becoming Flawesome is a guide to embracing authenticity, imperfection, and self-love.
It draws from Kristina’s personal journey and professional insights as a co-founder of Mindvalley. It focuses on helping readers navigate the pressures of perfectionism and societal expectations to uncover their true selves.
Key Themes In The Book
Challenges the notion of perfection and encourages readers to see their flaws not as liabilities but as unique aspects of their identity.
Emphasizes the power of living authentically, shedding masks, and being unapologetically yourself. This involves recognizing and accepting your imperfections and vulnerabilities.
Explores how societal norms and external validation can hinder personal growth and happiness, urging readers to redefine success on their own terms.
The book includes actionable insights and exercises to help readers confront limiting beliefs, practice self-compassion, and cultivate resilience.
Krisitna shares her struggles with perfectionism, self-doubt, and cultural conditioning, making the manual relatable and inspiring.
What Does Flawesome Mean?
Flawesome is a portmanteau of “flaws” and “awesome.” It generally refers to someone who embraces their imperfections and recognizes their own worth despite having flaws.
It has two main interpretations:
- Positive self-acceptance: This definition refers to individuals who acknowledge their flaws yet still consider themselves awesome. It encourages people to celebrate their imperfections and be proud of who they are, recognizing that nobody is perfect.
- Witty comeback: In some contexts, “flawesome” can be used as a clever response to someone calling something awesome, implying that the thing in question is full of flaws.
Core Message Of Becoming Flawesome
The book title encapsulates the idea of embracing your flaws as part of your awesomeness. It encourages readers to transform their perceived weaknesses into strengths, ultimately leading to a more fulfilling and authentic life.
If you’re interested in personal development, self-love, and practical steps to break free from perfectionism.
Kristina is an entrepreneur, author, and co-founder of Mindvalley, a company focused on personal development and education.
She is known for her work in consciousness engineering, meditation, and holistic health. She often shares insights on relationships, parenting, and mindfulness through various channels, including writing, speaking engagements, and online platforms. (1)
Becoming Flawesome Star Ratings
Becoming Flawesome Review Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐☆ (4/5)
1. Becoming Flawesome Content Quality Review: ⭐⭐⭐⭐☆ (4/5)
It delivers a heartfelt exploration of embracing imperfection in a world that often demands perfection. The book structure is intuitive, and her storytelling feels personal and relatable. However, some sections could benefit from deeper insights or actionable takeaways.
2. Becoming Flawesome Writing Style: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ (5/5)
The writing is engaging and conversational, often feeling like a warm conversation with a friend. Her anecdotes and reflections are interwoven beautifully, making the manual a pleasure to read.
3. Becoming Flawesome Practicality: ⭐⭐⭐⭐☆ (4/5)
It offers plenty of wisdom and inspiring ideas for personal growth. However, readers looking for step-by-step strategies or exercises might find it slightly lacking in actionable depth.
4. Becoming Flawesome Relevance: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ (5/5)
The themes of self-acceptance and overcoming societal pressures are incredibly timely. This book speaks to anyone navigating the pressures of perfectionism or seeking a more authentic life.
5. Becoming Flawesome Value for Money: ⭐⭐⭐⭐☆ (4/5)
At its price point, the book offers substantial value for readers looking for a mix of inspiration and introspection. However, readers seeking a more transformative experience may want additional resources or supplementary content.
Becoming Flawesome: Final Thoughts
Flawesome is an uplifting read that challenges the idea of perfection and encourages readers to embrace their flaws as part of their unique identity. It’s perfect for those seeking inspiration, though it might leave some wanting more concrete guidance.
If you’re ready to trade perfectionism for authenticity, this book is worth a spot on your shelf!
The Chapters
Part 1.The Path Back To You
Authenticity of the Second Degree . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
Are You Lost? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Living with Perfectionism, aka Hermione Syndrome . . . . 9
Success Is Not the Destination . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
The Myth of Hustling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
“Surfing” as an Antidote to Hustling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
Part 2. Finding Your Own Truth
The Red Pill . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
Buzzwords Come with Baggage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
Authenticity Is Internal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
Vulnerability & Crocodile Tears . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
Calling Out the Critic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
Starving Your Delusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
Part 3. Switching off Autopilot
Escaping the Rut . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
The Power of Habits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
Don’t Force It . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
A Better Fuel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
How Does Transformation Happen? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
One Step at a Time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
Part 4.The Art of Imperfection
Who Are You? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
The Paradox of the Masks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
When Your Avatars Don’t See Eye to Eye . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
You Cannot Shame Yourself Out of Being You . . . . . . . . . 99
Defense Mechanisms: We All Have Them . . . . . . . . . . . 104
A Weapon of Love . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110
Emotional First Aid . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116
No One Wants Your Perfection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128
A Pointless Sacrifice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133
Dodging Impostor Syndrome . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137
Part 5. Honesty
Paradigm Shift Starts with a Decision . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142
Let’s Be Honest About Honesty . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146
Self-Honesty . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150
There Is No Spoon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155
Stop Faking It . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160
Using Honesty Safely . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163
Be Honest About Honesty . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146
Part 6.Kindness
A Healing Tandem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180
Self-Kindness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185
Self-Care vs. Self-Love . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190
You Cannot Overdose on Self-Love . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195
Part 7. Courage
A Leap of Faith . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 202
Avoiding the Indecision Trap . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205
Overthinking Your Fear . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 210
Can You Undo Your Transformation? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 216
Your Journey Belongs to You . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 220
Part 8. Living Flawesomely
A New Life . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 226
Happiness Is a Skill . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 230
The Dangers of Trying Too Hard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 238
The World Is Your Reflection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 243
No One Needs Fixing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 251
Conclusion: There Are No Recipes in Life . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 257
Thank-You’s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 261
Appendix: Expanded Emotional Vocabulary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 265
Endnotes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 268
About the Author . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 281
Who Is This Book For?
Perfectionism is a terrible burden. We adopt it out of the best intentions because we want to be good; we want to be seen as someone who doesn’t make mistakes, has life figured out, and is flawless.
But it is the one thing that often stands between us and real, lasting, deep happiness, peace, and fulfillment.
Becoming Flawesome is about finding your way back to yourself, understanding who you are, accepting your dents and scratches, your quirky uniqueness, and even your flaws. It is about thriving in being unapologetically you, most flawesomely.
In the Becoming Flawesome, you’ll learn:
- The dark, controversial side of ‘personal growth’ and the insecurities that thrive on it
- What authenticity is, beyond the buzz
- Self-care vs. self-love, and why you need both
- The ‘Hermione Syndrome,’ and how to diagnose if you’re secretly suffering from it
- How to create aligned lifestyle habits that stick
- Why the more you judge others, the more you judge yourself
- Societal masks and how to remove them from your psyche
- Imposter syndrome in the world of high-flyers
- Emotional literacy: how to cope with strong, painful emotions healthily
What I Liked
I prefer reading digitally since I don’t read physical books as much as I used to, and it’s easier to pick up where I left off.
Kristina asks you to pause and reflect. This is a crucial step to ensure you fully digest the information and integrate it into your awareness.
You can start a journal and write down all your realizations at the end of each day. This will help you gain clarity, integrate new ideas, and avoid getting lost by helping you better recognize how you really feel.
Many of us struggle with self-love and self-acceptance. She explains how we may idolize someone in a romantic relationship and ignore the red flags because we believe they are perfect for us. We soon realize we fell in love with an “idea” and not the real person.
What if we apply the same idea to your most important relationship—the relationship with yourself?
Whether consciously or not, you have an ideal picture of a “Perfect You” in your head. Just like with a love partner, it is a list of traits and qualities that make you the best version of yourself, worthy of love and admiration.
And just like with a love partner, this idea is a figment of your imagination and does not (yet) exist in real life.
Because the object of their self-love is an idea in their heads, that version of themselves doesn’t exist yet. And the further that idea is from the Real You, the harder it is to love yourself.
My Favorite Chapter In Becoming Flawesome
This book had many chapters that I resonated with, but The Myth of Hustling stood out the most. I began working full-time when I was 19. My first job was at a pager/beeper company in the early 90s.
I was on a salary, and my schedule was Monday–Saturday, 10 a.m.-7 p.m., with an hour-long commute. I worked my way up from the shipping department to account manager. I did this in less than a year.
I had my own office with two computers, and I thought I was on top of the world. In addition to working, I exercised daily and maintained a social life.
Guess what? After a year, I experienced what I later discovered was adrenal fatigue or burnout. I had to reprioritize my life and my goals without burning the candle at both ends.
Western society idolizes hustling. It’s a status symbol. Our faith in hard work and hustling is so profound that if we find any evidence to the contrary — if success comes easy — we become suspicious—something is just not right.
You’ll challenge the myth of hustling and find freedom from the “success equals hard work” paradigm.
Eighty-two percent of successful, accomplished people experience impostor syndrome, and, according to various studies, up to 32 percent of employees in Europe experience burnout.
Many entrepreneurs and hustler types have trouble relaxing and being unproductive. I am one of them.
Here’s a simple analogy from Becoming Flawesome: When you go to the gym, you add weights to the machines so your muscles strain and you feel the burn.
If you don’t add enough weight and the training is easy, you may feel you haven’t done the required exercise and have wasted your time, which is perfectly reasonable in the case of strength training.
However, there is no scientific evidence of a correlation between emotional and physical strain and the realness or sustainability of success.
The myth of hustling is prevalent and has many proponents. It is so deeply rooted in our consciousness that we get almost outraged if anyone suggests otherwise.
Hustling is unsustainable.
Flawesome Is An Alternative To Hustling
There is an alternative to hustling: the flow state.
At any given time, you can be in one of two states: flow or resistance.
Rest is flow: you don’t exert effort to rest your body and mind. Hustling is a state of resistance: you need to apply effort to hustle—it’s like swimming upstream, or it is not hustling.
Naturally, rest is not the only state of flow, and hustling is not the only state of resistance.
If you master a skill, initially achieved through some resistance (applied effort), you can later perform it in a state of flow (no effort).
For example, if you’ve been riding a bike since childhood, you can ride it without any resistance in a state of flow, even if the first few times you had to overcome a lot of resistance, battling gravity and learning to balance.
In Western society, the default regime for success and achievement is hustling.
How do you achieve anything if you don’t hustle? Naturally, the answer is to do the exact opposite of hustling—create a flow state.
The Flow state is creative. Hustling is a state in which you maintain the status quo.
Becoming Flawesome Review Conclusion
Becoming Flawesome is about embracing your unique imperfections to overcome self-doubt and shame.
You’ll embark on a transformational journey that redefines your self-image and paves the way for a deeply authentic, beautifully imperfect life.
Like many people, you followed the rules, took all the proper steps in life, were a good boy or girl, and were successful, yet you are miserable under the surface. Why?
You were following someone else’s rules and blueprint for success and happiness.
When you connect with your true self and follow your inner guidance, you have no choice but to be happy, content, and fulfilled.
Becoming Flawesome helped me get off autopilot and clear the fog from my thinking. I was intrigued by it because I intended to be my authentic self when I started my personal development journey in 1997.
While striving to improve yourself is essential, you cannot become a better version of yourself, or any version of yourself for that matter, until you come to peace and accept the current version of yourself.
It’s not easy to be yourself all the time, but Becoming Flawesome made it easier for me to remove my mask and be authentic.
You’ll learn to be more aware, live with greater consciousness, discover your life’s purpose, and avoid autopilot mode.
Autopilot is when you do things without realizing how you did them. This is another area Kristina helped me overcome in her book Becoming Flawesome.
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