One of the greatest joys in life is building strong, healthy relationships.

One of the hardest things in life is building strong, healthy relationships.

If you find yourself so fortunate, life will give you many different types of relationships. Some will last a lifetime, others a moment in time.

Part of fostering these relationships is growing through the not-so-fun realities of what it is to be in a relationship, platonic or romantic.

This means coming face to face with flaws of yourself and of others.

Flaws can often stand in the way of a relationship’s success. It takes a lot of focused effort and learning to accept someone else’s flaws.

Why It’s Important to Recognize Others’ Flaws

When you have a strong tribe of good people around you, it becomes easy to idolize someone, overlooking their flaws or blatantly ignoring them.

Whether it’s a friend who seems to have their life together or a lover who seems to perfectly be ‘The One’, it’s normal to put those we admire on pedestals.

I know that you know this, but no one is perfect. Truly, no one is.

The question is, do you see your relationship with others as horizontal, where everyone is equal, or do see some relationships as vertical, with you being at the bottom?

When you put someone you know on a pedestal, there becomes an unspoken power dynamic that can create a wall between you and the person on the pedestal.

Walls only serve to prevent, block, and hide.

But recognizing other people’s flaws can help us see them as real. Human beings with imperfections, just like ourselves.

It allows us to truly experience relationships as horizontal, where everyone is equal, no one above another.

This can create a more authentic and realistic relationship where both parties can be open and honest about their weaknesses and strengths.

Recognizing other people’s flaws versus accepting their flaws is a completely different ball game.

When done recklessly, recognizing someone’s flaws can lead to the downfall of a relationship.

But when you recognize someone’s flaws with the goal of wanting to better understand and accept them, you afford the relationship an opportunity for infinite growth.

How to Accept Others’ Flaws

Learning to accept someone’s flaws is an incredibly selfless act.

It’s also an incredibly huge commitment.

So first ask yourself this; “Is this person and this relationship worth the work?”

Notice the use of the word ‘work’…because it does take work, as none of these things come 100% naturally to us.

But that’s great! Remember, nothing worth having in life comes easy.

#1 Don’t Compare Them to Others

Comparison is a lethal poison, bound to infiltrate a relationship the moment you let the first drop fall.

I mean come on…you know how much comparison impacts your mindset about yourself and your life.

In the same way that comparing your body to those fitness influencers on Instagram destroys your self-worth and confidence, comparison in a relationship does the same.

The more you recognize someone else’s flaws, the easier it is to seek others who don’t have those flaws.

It’s a twisted way to give yourself false peace about someone else’s flaws.

It’s almost like you’re saying “So I’m not crazy after all…not everyone leaves the cap off the toothpaste tube”.

Then comes the envy, followed by jealousy, which often leads to resentment.

The moment you start comparing, it’s almost impossible to go back.

Comparison is the theft of joy. It’s the theft of joy in life. It’s the theft of joy in relationships.

#2 Focus On The Positive

An important mindset shift must happen throughout this whole process.

You go from recognizing the other person’s flaws to choosing to focus on their positive qualities.

You can have an awareness of something seemingly negative while still choosing to see the positive.

We do this in our everyday lives, so why can’t we have this same mindset towards our relationships?

The goal is to see someone as their whole selves, flaws included.

Oftentimes, when we recognize someone’s flaws, it’s easy to hyper-focus on them and only see that person as their flaws.

Choosing to focus on someone’s positive qualities despite the fact you are painfully aware of their flaws is hard.

But it’s a step in seeing someone objectively, for who they are, in their wholeness.

#3 Practice Forgiveness

Forgive, forgive, forgive!

Forgiveness is a two-way street that we are constantly driving down.

Whether it’s the verbal communication of forgiveness or forgiving someone in your heart, both are vital to accepting someone’s flaws.

Lack of forgiveness by gripping onto anger will only cause resentment, making it harder to accept someone’s flaws.

Forgiveness and lack of judgment go hand-in-hand.

Be honest, you like to think you’re a non-judgmental person. But you are. To some degree, everyone is judgemental.

And the sooner you realize that the sooner you’re able to work towards being less judgmental. Because let’s face it, no one is ever going to be fully non-judgemental.

So the question lies, how are you to forgive someone when you have that faint voice in your head saying, ‘Just wait ‘till they do it again’ or ‘This always happens’? Or when your objective thought processes are clouded by judgment?

It’s nearly unjustifiable to judge someone based on their flaws because of the simple reality that everyone has them.

In learning how to accept someone’s flaws, be quick to forgive, as forgiveness brings internal and external peace. Not only for you but for the other person in the relationship as well.

Not to mention…wouldn’t you want others to be quick to forgive you?

#4 Learn to Communicate Effectively and Be Honest

Sometimes people are highly aware of their flaws. Other times, their flaws lie hidden under layers of icing like a three-tier chocolate cake (can you tell I’m hungry?).

Honesty is one of the hardest things to consistently practice within a relationship but is the foundation of growth.

Communicating openly and honestly with others can help you understand their flaws and work together to find solutions.

If you recognize a flaw in someone, it’s important for you to explicitly understand whether or not they too see that flaw within them. And you do this by… talking to them!

Because who knows? Maybe the thing you perceive as a ‘flaw’ really isn’t one at all and conversations reveal the truth behind your mistake. Or perhaps, the person didn’t even recognize their own flaw and all it took was you shining a light on it to allow them to better themselves.

All this to say, there is a very specific way you should approach these conversations. Try not to place blame or bring anger or resentment into the conversation.

Always listen more than you speak. Always speak kindly, in a way that lifts the other person up.

It’s possible to address hard conversations such as discussing someone’s flaws both with honesty and kindness.

#5 Focus on Personal Growth

Perhaps the biggest thing you can do to work on accepting someone else’s flaws is to be aware of your own.

How we deal with other people’s flaws is often a projection of how we deal with our own flaws.

If you don’t accept someone else’s flaws, it’s probably because you don’t accept your own.

Understanding and accepting your own flaws can make it easier to accept the flaws of others.

“The things you love about others are the things you love about yourself. The things you hate about others are the things you cannot see in yourself” -Brianna Weist.

It also helps you to stay in touch with the fact that you are human and so is everyone else. It’s crazy because it seems like, all too often, we lose sight of that simple reality…

Not only that, but working on yourself before you try to help someone else work on themselves increases your credibility as a mentor and leader.

Real Talk

We say all the time that ‘humans aren’t perfect’, but sometimes when it comes to important people in our life like a spouse or a parent, we expect them to be just that.

Ask yourself: would you want anyone to expect perfection from you? Of course not! What a bunch of nonsense and unneeded pressure…

It’s hard enough to accept your own flaws, let alone someone else’s, so be patient with yourself on this journey. But know that being able to accept someone else’s flaws leads to freedom.

Freedom from expectations. Freedom from discontent. And sometimes even freedom from your own flaws.

To conclude this perhaps long-winded stream of consciousness, I leave you with this quote to contemplate. Take it as you will-

“The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook” -William James.