Capturing the Beast of Perfectionism

We are taught to „always give our best“. To „hold ourselves to highest standards“. That we „can achieve anything if we only try hard enough“. Those ideas are tempting, and like any good lie, even half-true! I want to explore how we can channel perfectionism without it taking over our lives. But, I will start with the absurd bit: as I am blogging away on the problems of perfectionism, so many aspects and angles pop into my head that I get overwhelmed. It is such a dense and complicated topic and maybe just a bit too personal for me, that I freeze and erase. Isn’t it perfectly ironic, that perfectionism is inhibiting me to write about perfectionism?

However, I vow to myself, I will try nonetheless. It is an important topic. For myself, those close to me and maybe to one or two readers. It is beast running fast to avoid capture! It is escaping discussion by making it difficult to discuss. So today, I will throw myself at the tail of the beast to slow it down. Maybe many attempts later, I can knock it on its head and it can become a rug in front of my sofa of inner calm and peace? So, come along for the chase!

Never good enough

It has been a busy day: you tried your best and ran around like a mad woman to finish it all. Then, at night, you suddenly wake up and get haunted by that one thing that you missed. Fear of failure is having a tight grip on too many bits of family life: a child getting upset by math tests. Kids are unwilling to try a new sport because „everybody else is already so good at it“. The world speaks with admiration of the „Straight A Student“, the champions and „top achievers“ of our times. We know that we sometimes can work miracles just „by pulling through“, „giving it your all“, „fighting against the odds“. But I wonder if we keep shouting those lines, as most often it is not the case? We cannot shine at everything.

Getting Lured Into the Game

First of all, we humans are mammals. We can get trained just like monkeys, dogs or sea lions. Great research and effort is being spent on understanding on how we tick, get motivated and engaged. This helps us to achieve ever more wonders. We try, fail, analyse, improve, succeed, analyse, improve, repeat. This process stretches across almost all parts of our experience. Companies, classes, offers make use of those findings. While it is fantastic, that apps, schools, courses, TV are all designed to maximise our engagement and to create fun experiences for us, it is impossible for us to keep up with it all.

A few months ago, I had some spare time and I thought that I should not „waste“ it, but could use it to self-optimise. As we now live in a country, where French is an official language, I decided to brush up on my French that I last learnt in Highschool. I used Duolingo. And it ate me up. It is the stupidest thing. A little cartoon character cheering you on, league tables made up of strangers and icons and points everywhere. Yet, I was pleased with my quick progress, how I climbed the leagues and ended at the top. When a cartoon head congratulated me on scoring among the global x percent of learners, I smiled broadly. But then, as I had less time, I could no longer keep up and started to slip. You wouldn’t believe how childish I was and how I felt stressed (as a grown person!!) by some language learning app!

How to Exit the Game?

It was childish and I would not post about it today, if it weren’t for exam season in schools and I am having talks with my kids. I love it when they do their homework and study conscientiously. But how much should that take over their lives?

When a chemistry quiz sets you on edge for an entire weekend. If Duolingo pushes you down all leagues and gives you a sad face. When you fail your friend by forgetting to send birthday greetings. When you overcook the pie for the potluck luncheon. When you forget to write that mail to your client.

All these things are the perfectionists nightmares. Your first impulse will be to rally harder, work more, prepare better.

When you get so stressed by a netball lesson, that it makes you cry, is that a worthwhile experience? If you want to create the perfect present and get so overwhelmed up that you cannot make anything, is that helping anyone? Sure, there are many angles to it. It is important to learn to live with personal limitations. It can be humbling to see that some things are harder to achieve than others. We might need „to buckle up“, „get on with it“, „push through“.

But I actually think (just do not always remember), that the crucial bit is that we need to refocus:

Be Kind To Yourself

Yes, work hard, try hard, think hard, but then be okay with yourself. It is okay if we do not run as fast as Usain Bolt. He might not play chess as well as a Russian Grand Master. It is okay if we can do some things better than others and it is okay if we cannot be enthusiastic about everything. Some things are dreadful to do (tax return) and we still need to do it. Other things (netball) are not our cup of tea and that is fine. Some like to eat jellyfish salad, some don’t.

If we cannot forgive ourselves for slouching, lacking, failing, how can we forgive other people? If you have to be the best at something, what should happen to your friend working on it, too?

I am not saying, we should all roll in the sun for the rest of our lives and hope for someone to come over and feed us from a bucket of fish. But we can cut ourselves some slack and respect limitations. We can’t all have perfect party decorations, perfect food, perfect accounting, perfect grace, perfect waistlines and perfect French! We can open space for others to shine.

And isn’t is better to get a birthday greeting a month later than no message at all? Isn’t it nice to get a clump of clay that was meant to become a vase but shows the process that failed? Isn’t it sometimes nice to find a mail in your inbox „apologies, completely forgot to send this earlier…“ as it happens to all of us?

I think we need to allow ourselves to be imperfect. And we should share our imperfections with others, as it might make their days better, too. I will do this right now, as I will not ponder about this post, but just share it. I can polish it another day.

Perfectionism is an ugly terror when chasing you around, but a beautiful beast if admired from a safe distance.

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For today, I will admire it from afar and will not attempt to reach it! And maybe your feedback will help me to tame this wild beast of perfectionism.