Present Over Perfect by Shauna Niequist is an invitation to a path away from frantic pushing and proving, and toward your essential self, the one you were created to be before you began proving and earning for your worth.
Shauna offers an honest account of what led her to begin this journey, and a compelling vision for an entirely new way to live: soaked in grace, rest, silence, simplicity, prayer, and connection with the people that matter most to us.
In these pages, you’ll be invited to consider the landscape of your own life, and what it might look like to leave behind the pressure to be perfect and begin the life-changing practice of simply being present, in the middle of the mess and the ordinariness of life.
Scroll down to read 30 Life Quotes from Present Over Perfect by Shauna Niequist.
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Also Read: 10 Best Self-Help Books For Women To Read in 2020
30 Quotes from Present Over Perfect by Shauna Niequist
The world will tell you how to live, if you let it. Don’t let it. Take up your space. Raise your voice. Sing your song. This is your chance to make or remake a life that thrills you.
What kills a soul? Exhaustion, secret-keeping, image management. And what brings a soul back from the dead? Honesty, connection, grace.
I don’t want to get to the end of my life and look back and realize that the best thing about me was I was organized.
Present is living with your feet firmly grounded in reality, pale and uncertain as it may seem.
What people think about you means nothing in comparison to what you believe about yourself.
How we live matters, and what you choose to own will shape your life, whether you choose to admit it or not.
Let’s live lightly, freely, courageously, surrounded only by what brings joy, simplicity, and beauty.
You can’t have yes without no. If you’re not careful with your yeses, you start to say no to some very important things without even realizing it.
It is better to be truly known and seen and taken care of by a small tribe than adored by strangers who think they know you in a meaningful way.
It is better to be loved than admired.
It’s from our souls that we love, that we feel, that we create, that we connect.
Just because you have the capacity to do something doesn’t mean you have to do it.
We decide where the time goes. There’s so much freedom in that, and so much responsibility.
Stop. Right now. Remake your life from the inside out.
Part of being an adult is taking responsibility for resting your body and your soul.
I’m finished hustling for perfect. It didn’t deliver what they told me it would.
Present is choosing to believe that your own life is worth investing deeply in, instead of waiting for some rare miracle or fairy tale.
The best thing I can offer to this world is not my force or energy, but a well-tended spirit, a wise and brave soul.
This is what our culture wants women to be: skinny and tired.
What I’m learning is that you have to stop doing a whole lot of things to learn what it is you really love, who it is you really are.
It’s all about the heart, not the hustle.
What I ache for these days is space, silence, stillness.
Sometimes the darkest parts of us can be our teachers in ways that our sweeter qualities never could.
So much of adulthood is peeling off the layers of expectation and pressure, and protecting those precious things that lie beneath.
Hustle is the opposite of heart.
When you hand them the pen and tell them to write your story, you don’t get the pen back.
You were only meant, created, commanded to be who you are, weird and wonderful, imperfect and messy and lovely.
When you devote yourself to being known as the most responsible person anyone knows, more and more people call on you to be that highly responsible person.
Love doesn’t allow hiding. Love invites whole selves and whole stories out into the light.
Perfect has nothing on truly, completely, wide-eyed, open-souled present.
Which quote from Present Over Perfect by Shauna Niequist is your favorite?