Let Perfection Go in the Kitchen and Accept Your Cooking Style

I found a picture of me at the age of 3 or 4 playing in my play kitchen and looking as happy as can be. As I looked at the picture, I had a huge “aha” moment. I realized that my play kitchen was a mess and looked completely chaotic, but I was so happy. I was a messy and chaotic cook when I was a kid and I am still a messy and chaotic cook as an adult and it works!

What kind of cook are you? Do you like to cook? If you answered no to the last question and you don’t like to cook, I used to feel the same way. However, that all changed when I embraced the kind of cook I am and started to let go of the perfection I thought I needed to have in the kitchen.

For years, I never enjoyed cooking and in fact, I resisted it as much as I could. I married a man that is a "natural" in the kitchen, and used it as my crutch for a long time. When I watched the chefs on cooking shows they always made it look so easy and everything flowed to perfection and then I would look at my cooking and it always seemed like a big mess.

I held the belief for years that I could not cook and frankly the pressure I put on myself to try to make something taste perfect was stressful. I was comparing my cooking style to others and felt like a failure before I even would get started with a recipe. It wasn’t until I started to embrace my style of cooking and accepting the messy and chaotic way I cook, that I started to enjoy it. When I started to embrace my messy and chaotic ways in the kitchen and let go of perfection, suddenly cooking started working for me. It became fun and the stressed out feeling I used to get in the kitchen disappeared.

I want you to know you don’t have to be perfect in the kitchen either for cooking to work for you. You can have your own style and it can work!

I used to need silence in the kitchen so I could focus and cook the “right” way. Do you know how hard it is to have a quiet kitchen when you have kids? If you don’t have kids, let me tell you it is near impossible to have a quiet kitchen with kids running around. I was so focused on getting it “right” that it was not fun at all and felt stressful. The pressure of getting it “right” and trying to be perfect in the kitchen contributed to my negative feelings about my own cooking abilities.

I started having more fun in the kitchen when I shifted my thinking and embraced my style of cooking. I embraced the fact that I use more than enough utensils, pots, pans and bowls. I embraced not cleaning up as I cooked. I embraced the unorganized and messy kitchen when I cooked because it worked for me. Gone are the days when I needed silence to focus in the kitchen! Now I play music and add to the chaos and I love it!

The beauty of accepting the kind of cook you are allows you to laugh at your mistakes and move forward with a kinder heart towards yourself and your cooking. When you let perfection go and enjoy your style, you can bring fun into the kitchen.

Want have more fun in the kitchen?

Play Music
Embrace Your Style
Be Okay With Mistakes
Laugh at Yourself Once in Awhile
Don’t get mad if your measurement is off – it makes the dish your own dish and was maybe meant to happen that way
Remember you don’t have to be perfect

Embrace your style in the kitchen and let go of perfection. You just might realize you like cooking more than you thought.