Embracing Imperfection: Lauren Best’s Journey with Possibilities Universe

In this inspiring interview, we sit down with Lauren Best, the visionary founder of Possibilities Universe. With a heartfelt mission to disrupt the shackles of perfectionism, Lauren is dedicated to creating a safe and nurturing environment where individuals can celebrate their authentic selves. Her journey reflects a profound commitment to self-discovery and transformation, urging others to embrace their uniqueness and explore the limitless possibilities that life offers. Join us as Lauren shares her insights on overcoming the fear of imperfection, the power of self-love, and the essential tools she has crafted to empower individuals on their path to creativity and joy.

1. What inspired you to create Possibilities Universe and focus on disrupting perfectionism?

I felt inspired to create Possibilities Universe because of my desire to bring experiences to people that would allow them to feel safe enough to celebrate themselves and confident enough to connect to and deepen into their mind-body-heart-intuition. I wanted to create a space where people could embrace transformation and welcome experimentation without pressure because of all of the pressure that we often feel as humans to show up a certain way, perform to a specific level, produce expected outcomes, or keep ourselves in a box that would be easier for other people to digest.

I have been on my own journey of deconditioning from external ways of doing and being, redefining what it means and feels like to put joy before expectation. And through this, I had personally been collecting tools and experiences that supported me to unlock my own self-expression that integrated elements of self-discovery, celebration, mindfulness, creativity, curiosity, that built my capacity to sit with imperfection.

I thought that what I wanted was to help others experience that level of freedom and self-love, where we as humans can all connect, grow, and explore without the constraints of perfectionism, allowing ourselves to be truly and unapologetically authentic.

When I looked at all of the amazing tools and experiences that I was creating to put out into the world, I realized just how much they are bigger than just me—that the impact I want to create is way bigger and that there are endless possibilities without needing to be perfect.

2. Can you share a personal story about how perfectionism has affected your own creativity and self-expression?

Before I created Possibilities Universe, I was experimenting with entrepreneurship, trying to find my path while still entangled in the traps of perfectionism. I was constantly seeking external validation, setting unnecessary standards, and fearing to put myself out there until everything was perfect. This fear of failure and feeling “not enough” was deeply rooted in my past experiences and the black-and-white thinking I had adopted over time.

I used to wait for someone else to give me permission to be seen, to share my work, and to tell my story. But as I began receiving invitations from others and started to put myself out there more, I noticed my discomfort around vulnerability began to shrink. My confidence grew as I received positive feedback from clients and peers. Yet, I realized I wasn’t celebrating my own achievements or giving myself the recognition I deserved.

Over time, this external validation started to feel like permission to express myself more openly and share deeper insights about the emotional and energetic sides of entrepreneurship. I learned that ignoring our bodies’ signals—whether it’s burnout, the need to move, hydrate, or rest—keeps us from making decisions that honor our hearts and intuition. Striving for perfection often means denying these essential parts of ourselves.

One day, after sending out a deeply personal and well-received newsletter, I was surprised to receive a few responses pointing out a small typo in the last line. Despite the overwhelmingly positive feedback, those few messages triggered my old fear of failure. I realized that perfectionism wasn’t just about me—it was a shared fear, a discomfort with imperfection that many people struggle with, driven by their own inner critics.

I remembered hearing the words of my mentor, Dr. Melissa Bird saying, “Lauren, you are not here to be perfect, you are here to disrupt, you are here to disrupt perfectionism”. That sentiment felt super uneasy and unfamiliar to me, like an iniation that I didn’t want to accept.

But, I know in that moment, it was another invitation to make a conscious choice. I could continue to be held back by perfectionism, constantly seeking external validation, or I could give myself permission to embrace imperfection and honor my own intuition and values. By choosing to disrupt perfectionism, I’m not just creating more freely—I’m empowering myself to make decisions that align with my heart, to share more authentically, and to trust that the only validation I need comes from within.

This experience fuels my commitment to Possibilities Universe, where the focus is on creating a space for others to do the same—to disrupt perfectionism, embrace their uniqueness, and celebrate their journey without the pressure of being perfect.

3. How did your journey to overcome perfectionism shape the tools and resources you offer through Possibilities Universe?

Birthed from my own desire to explore a more creative and joyful life beyond the perfectionist tendencies that were holding me back…I created PU is for other seekers, dreamers, and the overwhelmed…to provoke possibility, to disrupt perfectionism, to hold space for celebration, to enhance curiosity, tap into creativity and deep joy on both a subconscious and conscious level.

Yes, PU was built on this big vision I had to bring the same safety and exploration to get creative and dream big, but it actually started with a simple card deck that I designed and prototyped to use during my in-person group hypnosis workshops. This “Celebrate Yourself” Card Deck was created out of an intuitive realization I gathered that the pressure we expeirence to achieve, to be perfect, to limit ourselves stems from missed opportunities to celebrate the small things.

We spend so much time rushing from one place to another and from one task to another that it’s not often that we stop to celebrate ourselves, yet its these micro moments that will ripple out to remind us that we get to feel more pride and appreciation in the impact that we have already made in the world.

The truth is we have so many things to celebrate… the mundane… the setbacks… the unexpected moments… the unnoticed milestones… the growth that goes unrecognised… the kindness we are worthy of receiving from a stranger for no good reason.

Because this thing called perfectionism has been a huge barrier of mine in the past, stopping me from putting my work and creativity out into the world, I believe that celebration and self-compassion are the antidotes for gaining momentum towards our dreams.

We create magic within us when we celebrate ourselves, and we create magic that becomes even bigger than ourselves when we celebrate with others.

The fear of not having anything worthy of celebrating, or appearing perfect and failing as a result is a huge barrier that I see with many people from all walks of life in my work as a hypnotherapist and design strategist.

This deck, being the first tangible tool that I designed, offers 50 prompts for people to celebrate their growth, celebrate their dreams, celebrate receiving, celebrate their power, celebrate their excitement. The vulnerability and the closeness that I have had the privledge to witness from groups of strangers through the used of these cards has been more than magical. They are part of the puzzle that allows people to intentionally and intuitevely connect to themselves and to community without leaving room for over thinking and judgement to exist.

And because of this, it’s this same act of responding to imperfection that has sparked me to write my own permission slips and encourage others to write their own too. Through this work, I have realized that permission slips are another peice of the puzzle to disrupting perfectionism, while also creating understanding around the power we give away to do or be to others while we wait for external permission, and how uncovering our own permission to make decisions from our hearts and intuition can also allow us to reclaim the most magical parts of ourselves.

Whether I’m giving a talk or facilitating a workshop, these tools are essential parts of the experience that I deliver because of how magical and impactful they are.

4. How do you help individuals unlock their potential and explore their creativity without feeling pressured?

I help individuals unlock their potential and explore their creativity by addressing the deep-rooted tendencies that drive us to seek external validation and fear imperfection. From a young age, many of us are conditioned to look for errors, seeking praise and validation from authority figures, which can lead to a belief that our worth is tied to external approval. This conditioning is reinforced by societal factors and the constant stream of external feedback from social media and other platforms, making it easy to prioritize others’ opinions over our own intuition.

Our brains, wired to identify problems and mitigate risks, can often act as a barrier to creativity and innovation. The more we focus on avoiding failure, the stronger the neural pathways that support these fears become. This can stifle our willingness to take risks, explore new possibilities, and embrace the uncertainty that comes with creative expression. Over time, this creates a rigid mindset that prioritizes conformity over authenticity, leading us to suppress our unique talents in favor of meeting external standards.

To disrupt these patterns, I use hypnosis as a powerful self-development tool. Hypnosis allows individuals to bypass the critical mind and directly reprogram the subconscious, forming new, empowering beliefs and behaviors. Through positive suggestions and imagery, hypnosis helps to create new neural pathways that support confidence, resilience, and the freedom to make decisions based on our own values rather than external pressures.

By addressing these underlying beliefs and reprogramming the subconscious mind, I help individuals to break free from perfectionism, access their creativity without fear, and explore their full potential in a way that honors their unique talents and passions. This approach not only allows for the unlocking of creativity but also fosters a deep sense of self-worth and authenticity, enabling individuals to show up in the world with confidence and joy, free from the constraints of perfectionism.

5. Can you describe a particularly rewarding experience or success story from someone who has benefited from Possibilities Universe?

One of the biggest things that I notice within any part of my work within Possibilities Universe is the openess that I see people walk away with. Whether it be an openess to explore new possibilities for their work or lives, or to embrace their uniquness, or to show up more imperfectly, or to follow their desires and heart, or to be okay with not knowing all of the answers. There is a confidence, a trust, a release of overwhelm and aloneness.

6. What are some common struggles people face when trying to overcome perfectionism, and how can they address these challenges?

Our bodies are naturally wired to resist change and growth because they perceive it as a threat to the familiar sense of safety they’ve always known or the fragile stability they think they’re holding onto. This resistance can manifest as physical discomfort, distraction, procrastination, self-doubt, self-sabotage, perfectionism, or clinging to the familiar, keeping us stuck in what we know.

The good news is that we have many tools available to help us create a sense of safety in our bodies. There are exercises we can use to transform doubt and intrusive thoughts into motivating mantras that guide us toward the aligned actions we deserve to take.

However, what isn’t often discussed is just how uncomfortable it can be to sit with and move through this discomfort. It can be hard to describe the experience of nausea, nervousness, or confusion that arises as we grieve the old versions of ourselves, the familiar relationships, the outgrown ways of being, or the predictable experiences we once hoped for.

It takes trust. It takes surrender.

What I know to be true is that surrender creates space—space to be with ourselves, to deepen our spiritual practice, to grow even more safety in our bodies, to ground into the present moment, and to trust that everything is unfolding for us, even if we can’t yet see the growth. The secret is that we can sit back, relax, and trust that we don’t need to micromanage the magic that is already happening all around us and for us.

But even though we have the opportunity to experience all of this, the discomfort remains. It’s all intertwined in a spiral of growth that may make us feel uneasy but is absolutely worth exploring. If reading this makes you feel a little queasy, it might be that your body knows you’re curious about transforming your life, surrendering, and trusting yourself more, but it’s trying to keep you safe from the transformation you’re capable of experiencing.

Our subconscious minds and bodies are always in tune with what we need. For a long time, I believed that all we needed was to do the work to heal and expand our capacity within our subconscious minds, so we could take action from a place of self-belief. What I hadn’t fully recognized was just how integral our body is to this process.

It’s the mind-body-heart-intuition connection that we get to nurture through hypnosis, daily practices, and the lives we create for ourselves. We simply need to know which tools to use to cultivate more comfort, more trust, and more surrender.

7. How do you maintain a balance between encouraging creativity and providing practical tools and strategies?

Something that I have realized over the past few years of finding myself, following my dreams, and making sense of the overwhelm in between, is that I personally experience more magic when I embrace my feminine and spiritual energy before any strategy. I realized early on in experimenting in my business that I could design the “perfect” strategy but without the inner-belief and subconscious support to match, there was no way I coud force myself to take action with confidence. The subconscious reporgramming to expand the capactiy of what feels safe for our nervous systems to experience gets to be as important as the intutive strategy that we take.

8. What are some strategies you use to stay motivated and continue evolving your project? / What advice do you have for women who feel held back by their own perfectionism or fear of failure?

I am never short of ideas for new possibilities for my work and life, so my big lesson has been giving myself permission to zoom in on one or maybe even two things at a time instead of trying to do all of the things with less energy to go around. This has also come with building the trust that “anything that is for me cannot be missed” and that there is no rush to realize all of the possibilities that I see. That overwhelm of so many possibilities and the fear of going all in on one of the possibilities is definitely a pattern that I see amongst many other entrepreneurial women.

This is why connecting to the subconscious mind through visualization can be so powerful. It can help us to connect to and zoom in on that version of ourselves that is already embodying our vision, that version of us who trusts our next steps without limitation, and allows us to form new neuropathways in our brains as if the things we’ve been dreaming of have aleady happened. You see, our subconscious mind doesn’t know if we’ve experienced something in real life or not, so visualization is a super potent way to make things happen before they have.

9. What future plans or goals do you have for Possibilities Universe?

My vision for Possibilities Universe is that it will grow bigger than myself… that through the cards, keynotes, workshops, hypnosis audios, books, and tools that I see growing inside the universe. It is so clear in my vision that all of these peices will continue to spread the power of self-permission and celebration as a way to disrupt perfectionism and provoke possibility.

I want to continue to share my keynote speech, “Disrupting Perfectionism Through Self-Permission, Celebration, and Possibility,” with organizations, companies, and communities, while simultaneously expanding it into my first solo book. This book will delve deeper into the themes of self-permission, celebration, and the embrace of possibilities, providing readers with practical tools and insights to disrupt perfectionism in their own lives. Through this journey, I aim to reach a broader audience, empowering individuals and groups to challenge societal norms, honor their intuition, and celebrate their unique paths with confidence and joy.

And a really cool dream I have for ithis next year is to take Possibilities Universe to Design Festivals and spaces around the globe in an exhibition called, “Permission to Celebrate”. In a world driven by productivity and perfection, “Permission to Celebrate” invites participants to pause and appreciate the present moment. It challenges visitors to reflect on their achievements, aspirations, and creativity without external validation. By doing so, the exhibition cultivates a mindset of abundance, encouraging individuals to live intentionally, tap into their innate creativity, and embrace opportunities ahead.

The exhibition will feature a “Permission Slips” installation where participants will contribute their self-written permissions to a collective display symbolizing personal empowerment, a “Celebration Card Deck” experience where visitors’ reflections on their life celebrations will be projected as a film celebrating human resilience and joy, and facilitated workshops that foster community interaction, inspire creativity, and encourage participants to explore new possibilities and celebrate successes.

IG: @laurenbest_co