Embracing Imperfection: A Review of The Gifts of Imperfection by Brené Brown

ByPeter Joeseph 'Briefcase Maker' Kalafatis
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The talk came first. In June 2010, Brené Brown gave “The Power of Vulnerability” at TEDxHouston, and The Gifts of Imperfection, published by Hazelden the same year, followed it and covers similar ground. Where the talk runs about twenty minutes, the book spreads its concerns of shame, worthiness and belonging across ten practices, one to a chapter.

This review covers how the book is built, what it claims, and where readers have pushed back. Every factual point is sourced at the bottom, and anything that is interpretation rather than fact is written as such.

The Author and the Book

Brown holds a PhD in social work from the University of Houston, awarded in 2002, and is a professor at the university’s Graduate College of Social Work, where she holds the Huffington Foundation’s Brené Brown Endowed Chair. Her earlier titles include Women & Shame (2005), I Thought It Was Just Me (But It Isn’t) (2007) and Connections, a shame-resilience curriculum that Hazelden published in 2009.

Hazelden, based in Center City, Minnesota, released The Gifts of Imperfection in 2010 under the subtitle Let Go of Who You Think You’re Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are. Daring Greatly arrived in 2012, then Rising Strong (2015), Braving the Wilderness (2017), Dare to Lead (2018) and Atlas of the Heart (2021). A 10th anniversary edition appeared in 2020 with a new foreword, new tools and a new subtitle, Your Guide to a Wholehearted Life. The publisher’s description of that edition calls the book a #1 New York Times bestseller and cites more than two million copies sold in 35 languages.

Ten Guideposts, One Pattern

Shortform’s review describes the opening as a primer on worthiness, Wholehearted living and shame, covering the introduction and the first three chapters. After that comes the core of the book: ten guideposts to what Brown calls Wholehearted living. Each guidepost gets its own chapter, and each title names something to cultivate alongside something to release:

  1. Cultivating Authenticity: Letting Go of What People Think
  2. Cultivating Self-Compassion: Letting Go of Perfectionism
  3. Cultivating a Resilient Spirit: Letting Go of Numbing and Powerlessness
  4. Cultivating Gratitude and Joy: Letting Go of Scarcity and Fear of the Dark
  5. Cultivating Intuition and Trusting Faith: Letting Go of the Need for Certainty
  6. Cultivating Creativity: Letting Go of Comparison
  7. Cultivating Play and Rest: Letting Go of Exhaustion as a Status Symbol and Productivity as Self-Worth
  8. Cultivating Calm and Stillness: Letting Go of Anxiety as a Lifestyle
  9. Cultivating Meaningful Work: Letting Go of Self-Doubt and “Supposed To”
  10. Cultivating Laughter, Song, and Dance: Letting Go of Being Cool and “Always in Control”

(Titles as listed in Sonderbooks’ review.)

The pairing carries most of the argument. Read closely, the format presents each trait as the reverse side of a habit the reader already has: authenticity against managing other people’s opinions, self-compassion against perfectionism. Because every chapter handles one pair, the book can be taken out of order, a point Shortform’s review counts in its favor, though the same review observes that the separation hides how much some of the strategies overlap.

Worthiness Comes First

Before the guideposts begin, the book lays down its premise. One line from it, quoted in Sonderbooks’ review, states that premise compactly:

Cluttered desk at dusk with tea, notebook and a leather briefcase

“Wholehearted living is about engaging in our lives from a place of worthiness.”

(Source: Sonderbooks, quoting Brené Brown.)

Worthiness here is a starting condition, not a prize. A 2014 review on The Work at Home Woman describes Brown’s research as finding that people who live fulfilled lives believed they deserved love and connection without having to earn them first. Brown’s own site frames the whole book as an invitation to a “wholehearted revolution” that begins with a single affirmation:

“My story matters because I matter.”

(Source: Brené Brown’s website.)

That sentence is short enough to pass for a slogan. In the book’s design it works more like a permission slip, since every later guidepost assumes the reader has already signed it. This is interpretation, but the ordering matters: if worthiness had to be earned first, the ten guideposts would turn into one more checklist to fail.

Letting Go in Practice

Several of the ten titles name habits that rarely get treated as problems. Guidepost seven sets play and rest against exhaustion as a status symbol and productivity as self-worth. Guidepost eight sets calm and stillness against anxiety as a lifestyle, and guidepost six sets creativity against comparison. Phrased that way, the titles treat overwork as something people display, which makes these the chapters most likely to land with readers whose days are full of deadlines.

The Sonderbooks review, dated February 20, 2012 and copyrighted to Sondra Eklund, describes the book as slow, reflective reading and says it helped the reviewer accept an imperfect, vulnerable self. Its themes, as that review summarizes them, are self-worth, love and belonging, gratitude, rest and play.

That review also stresses how personal the book is: Brown, it says, applied the principles to her own life and family, and the argument runs that people who feel they belong believe they are worthy of belonging. A reasonable reading is that this personal framing explains both the book’s warmth and the main complaint made against it, since the voice that makes it approachable also keeps Brown’s own story near the center.

Where Readers Push Back

Not everyone is convinced. Shortform’s review gathers the recurring objections: some online reviewers feel the book centers Brown too much, some find it short on practical advice, and some say its strategies stay theoretical, telling readers to free themselves from societal expectations without much instruction on how. The same review notes that the anecdote-driven style can make the main ideas hard to pull out, and that some readers consider Daring Greatly the more thorough treatment of shame and vulnerability.

Worn leather notebook cover with a pencil and a visible seam

Those objections concern format more than sincerity. Ten short chapters in a personal voice make a book that is easy to start and sometimes hard to apply. The 10th anniversary edition adds new tools, according to its publisher, which may answer the complaint about practical advice, though this review has not compared the two editions side by side.

Taken together, the reviews cited here suggest a fair summary. The book suits readers who want a reflective, permission-giving read and are willing to supply their own exercises. It suits readers who want a research-forward, step-by-step method less well. That is a judgment drawn from these reviews, not a measurement, and individual readers differ.

Watch: The Power of Vulnerability

TED’s page for the talk lists it as TEDxHouston, June 2010, and describes Brown as someone who studies human connection: the ability to empathize, belong and love. It runs just over twenty minutes.

For a longer format, Netflix released Brené Brown: The Call to Courage in 2019, a filmed lecture. It postdates the book by nearly a decade, so it is a companion to Brown’s later work as much as to this title.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is The Gifts of Imperfection the same book as Daring Greatly?
No. Hazelden published The Gifts of Imperfection in 2010, and Gotham published Daring Greatly in 2012. Shortform’s review reports that some readers find Daring Greatly the more thorough of the two on shame and vulnerability.

What does “Wholehearted” mean in the book?
The line quoted earlier gives the shortest answer: Wholehearted living means engaging in life from a place of worthiness. The ten guideposts are the practices Brown attaches to that idea.

Who is Brené Brown?
A University of Houston social work professor and researcher, PhD 2002, who studies shame, vulnerability and human connection and has written a run of books since 2005, of which this is the fourth by Wikipedia’s list.

What are the ten guideposts?
Each pairs a quality to cultivate with a habit to drop: authenticity, self-compassion, a resilient spirit, gratitude and joy, intuition and faith, creativity, play and rest, calm and stillness, meaningful work, and laughter, song and dance. The full titles are listed above.

How long is it?
Short. Catalog records for the original 2010 edition give page counts between roughly 137 and 160, and the 10th anniversary edition is listed at 208 pages.

Is there a newer edition?
Yes. A 10th anniversary edition with a new foreword and new tools appeared in 2020. Retailer listings give differing dates for it, so check the edition and ISBN before buying.

Is the book based on research?
Brown’s academic training is in social work, and reviewers describe the book as drawing on her research into shame, worthiness and connection. Shortform’s review adds that it leans on anecdote more than on a formal presentation of data.

Where to Read It

The Gifts of Imperfection: Let Go of Who You Think You’re Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are (affiliate link) is the ISBN-10 of the original 2010 Hazelden edition, while the 10th anniversary edition, with its new foreword, is sold under a different ISBN.

Quiet park bench with an open paperback in late-afternoon light

Further Reading

  • Sonderbooks: a 2012 review that lists all ten guideposts and describes the book as a slow, reflective read.
  • The Work at Home Woman: Christy Schutz’s 2014 review, which ties Brown’s findings on worthiness to the pressures many women face and concludes, “There are some valuable lessons I learned in the book.”
  • The Center for Understanding in Conflict: a November 2011 “Book of the Month” post that quotes Brown’s definition of authenticity.
  • Shortform: a review that sets out the book’s structure alongside the criticisms summarized above.

Sources

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