Becoming Flawesome by Kristina Mand-Lakhiani has a question for you.
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.
They radiate authenticity, drawing genuine connections, opportunities, and success. Kristina Mänd-Lakhiani’s book Becoming Flawesome guides you to this beautiful way of life.
Kristina guides you on a journey of radical self-acceptance, embracing imperfections.
Love yourself fully, including your flaws, to show up confidently and authentically daily.
You’ll love her new book, Becoming Flawesome: The Key to Living an Imperfectly Authentic Life. In this review, I’ll go over the details.
About Kristina Mänd-Lakhiani
Kristina Mänd-Lakhiani is an entrepreneur, author, and co-founder of Mindvalley, a company focused on personal development and education.
Alongside her husband, Vishen Lakhiani, she has played a significant role in shaping Mindvalley into a prominent platform offering courses, events, and resources aimed at personal growth, well-being, and self-improvement.
Kristina 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.
Flawesome Meaning
The definition of Flawesome is a portmanteau word combining “flaws” and “awesome.” It generally refers to someone who embraces their imperfections and recognizes their own worth despite having flaws.
Flawesome has two main interpretations:
- Positive self-acceptance: This definition describes individuals who acknowledge their flaws but 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.
She has a course on Mindvalley – Live By Your Own Rules.
Becoming Flawesome Book Review
Becoming Flawesome book by Kristina Mand Lakhiani is 281 pages, with eight chapters and a conclusion at the end.
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 The Becoming Flawesome 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 and the feeling of peace and fulfillment.
Becoming Flawesome is about finding your way back to yourself, understanding who you are, accepting your dents and scratches, quirky uniqueness, and even flaws. It is about thriving in being unapologetically you, most flawesomely.
In Becoming Flawesome, Kristina takes readers by the hand and heart through the following paradigms:
- 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
Becoming Flawesome – What I Liked About The Book
I prefer to read the book digitally since I don’t read physical books as much as I used to, and it’s simpler to pick up where I left off.
Throughout the book, Kristina asks you to pause and reflect in moments of introspection. This is a crucial step to ensure that you digest the information and bring it fully 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 unlost by helping you become better at recognizing how you really feel.
Many of us struggle with self-love and self-acceptance. Kristina 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 just a figment of your imagination, which 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
This book had many chapters that I thoroughly 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 salary, and my schedule was Monday – Saturday, 10 am-7 pm, with an hour commute. I worked my way up from working in the shipping department to becoming an 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 my job, 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 candles 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.
Kristina challenges the myth of hustling and finds freedom from the “success equals hard work” paradigm.
Eighty-two percent of successful, accomplished people suffer from impostor syndrome, and according to various studies, up to 32 percent of employees in Europe suffer from burnout.
Many entrepreneurs and hustler types have trouble relaxing and being unproductive. I am one of them.
Here’s a simple analogy from Kristina in the Becoming Flawesome book: When you go to the gym, you add weights to the machines so that your muscles strain and you feel the burn.
If you don’t add enough weights and the training is easy, you think you haven’t done the required exercise and 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.
Kristina Mand Gives An Alternative To Hustling
Kristina has an alternative to hustling: the flow state.
At any given time, you can be in one of the two states: you can be in a state of flow or a state of 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, which will be initially achieved through some resistance (applied effort), you can later perform that skill 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 by doing the exact opposite of hustling—creating a flow state.
The Flow state is creative. Hustling is a state in which you maintain the status quo.
Becoming Flawesome Book Review Conclusion
Becoming Flawesome is about authenticity and overcoming self-doubt and shame by embracing your unique imperfections. 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 to your true self and follow your inner guidance, you have no choice but to be happy, content, and fulfilled because you follow your internal guidance system.
The Becoming Flawesome book helped me get out of “autopilot” and cleared my foggy 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 at all times, but Becoming Flawesome made it easier for me to remove my mask and be authentic. I also learned to become more aware, living with an enhanced level of consciousness and purpose, with an aversion to autopilot.
Autopilot is when you do things without realizing how you did them. This is another area that Kristina helped me overcome in her book.
Get yourself a copy of the Book - Becoming Flawesome: The Key to Living an Imperfectly Authentic Life
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