Overcoming a Perfectionist Mind
The last time I posted on here, I spoke about the struggle to find motivation and the simple way to achieve it. I haven’t written anything else since.
That was over a month ago.
Oh, the irony.
My blog has been on my mind almost every day since that post. I’ve been umm-ing and ahh-ing about what to write next. Maybe I could write about self-care? Maybe I could dive into the archives and write another travel post? Maybe I could write something about Coronavirus (but let’s be honest, nobody really wants to read any more about that, do they?)
The ideas spiral through my head, floating round and round like fish in a pond. Every now and then I’m able to grasp onto one for just long enough that I can jot it down on paper. But when I sit down at my laptop to type, my fingers hesitate, hovering over the keys. My mind goes blank and the words disappear. And, just like that, the idea slips from my grasp and plops back down into the depths of that pond.
My notepads are jotted with brief bullet points, while my drafts are filled with half-finished posts. Some never got further than a single sentence with just a few words – the embers of a flash of inspiration that very quickly fizzled out.
The ideas are there, so what’s the problem?
Let me introduce you to my life-long companion: perfectionism.
My perfectionism’s motto is: if I can’t do it perfectly then it’s not worth sharing. I’ve been so focused on writing the perfect post that everyone would like, that would resonate with every reader, that nothing ever seemed good enough.
Perfectionism has been an unwelcome trait of mine for most my life. With parents who placed huge importance on academic success and always pushed me to do my best, I was an over-achiever in school. I would spend hours upon hours studying, staying up until the early hours of the morning painstakingly fine-tuning my coursework. I would have dramatic meltdowns whenever exam time came around, the fear of making a mistake overwhelming me. In my mind, if I achieved anything below the top grades, I had failed.
As someone who has always felt inadequate and insecure, striving for perfection was my way to feel accepted and validated. If I had that constant stream of praise and gold stars, then I would feel worthy.
When I left school, I gradually learnt to push that way of thinking to the back of my mind and instead focused on the importance of just giving it my best shot regardless of the outcome. I didn’t need to be the best, it didn’t need to be perfect, as long as I had tried. It was the showing up and taking part that mattered.
I loved a cliché.
Now, edging closer towards my late-20s and at a crossroads in my life, that perfectionism has slowly crept back in. I’ve been agonising over my next step, obsessed with making the “right” choice: from the dream career and what place to move to, to what blog post to write next. And with the growth of Instagram, the most finely curated platform of them all, it’s been a constant battle to keep my perfectionist thoughts at bay.
In short, I haven’t wanted to write or post anything because it’s been very difficult to ignore the niggly voices in my head that tell me I’m not good enough.
Perfectionism isn’t a new thing. In Thomas Curran and Andrew Hill’s study on perfectionism across the generations from 1989 to 2016, over 40,000 American, British and Canadian college students were questioned on three types of perfectionism: self-oriented (the unrealistic expectation of ourselves), socially prescribed (perceiving excessive expectations from others), and other-oriented (the impossibly high standards we judge others on). The results were clear: there was an increase across all three boards, with socially prescribed the highest at 33%. The average college student is now more likely to have perfectionist tendencies than one in the 1990s or early 2000s, as “young people are seemingly internalizing a preeminent contemporary myth that things – including themselves – should be perfect” (Curran, Why Perfectionism is on the Rise and How to Overcome It).
If we’re aware of the rise in the unrealistic expectations of perfection, why do we still strive for it?
In today’s competitive society, it’s drummed into us to always reach for more. Achievement, image and success are put on a pedestal above everything else. From a young age, we’re measured on a numerical scale of our skills, divided into categories of how “good” we are, celebrated if we reach the top. In adult life, “hustle culture” takes over. We’re urged to find our “dream” job (does such a thing exist?) and encouraged to build upon and perfect our passion so it can be turned into money. Search #work on Instagram and you will find 132 million posts, while #hustle has 24.6 million. Search #hobby and there are only 18.6 million. Apparently doing something for fun just isn’t enough anymore.
We’re taught that if we work hard enough and get everything right, then we’ll get good results and status. Achieving perfection is often viewed positively as the driving force that ensures we put in the effort to get those results. The problem is, if “perfection” is an unrealistic concept that doesn’t actually exist, when will you ever feel like you’ve done enough?
Consistently striving for perfection in every area of life won’t always ensure good results. In fact, it can be debilitating. Yes, aiming high and working towards excellence will mean you’re more likely to work hard to make sure it’s good. But when it turns into a perfectionism built upon self-criticism, external validation and fear of failure – otherwise known as “maladaptive perfectionism” – it can become detrimental to mental health and will almost always hold you back.
By trying to be perfect at everything, focusing on every tiny mistake you’ve ever made and constantly worrying about “failing”, you’re subconsciously telling yourself that you are inadequate and flawed. That you somehow aren’t enough and need to be better.
So, how do you overcome perfectionism?
Firstly, it’s important to recognise when perfectionist tendencies have spiralled. There’s a very fine line between striving for excellence and striving for perfection. I’d always assumed my perfectionism was just a reflection of my high standards and a result of taking pride in my work. I’ve never questioned the self-criticism that comes so naturally to me because I thought it was helping me want to achieve more. The message of perfection and being “better” is so deeply ingrained in our society and culture that it can be easy to assume that self-criticism is a normal, healthy and productive part of our identities. Spoiler: it’s not.
Once you’ve acknowledged this learnt behaviour, it’s time to let go.
Above everything else, perfectionism is about control. It’s the belief that if we agonise over every single mistake we’ve ever made, we’re in control to make sure they’ll never happen again. It’s the belief that if we keep doing everything right, just as everyone else is doing it if not better, then we can control how other people respond to us. Nobody will ever reject something that’s perfect, right?
It’s only recently that I’ve realised perfectionism has been my way to protect myself from any rejection, criticism and failure. In a world where it’s so easy to feel out of control, it’s been my way to avoid anything that would ever make me feel bad.
However, if we’ve learnt anything from 2020, it’s that we don’t have control. No matter how much we try, we can never control what happens around us. Life is unfair, bad things happen and plans don’t always go the way we want. Constantly trying to avoid that truth is exhausting. It’s energy that could be spent on other things, like just living.
Once we let go of that need for control and accept the messiness of life, we can make room for so much more. Nothing is ever supposed to be perfect. A perfect world would be incredibly stagnant. It’s through the risks, the mistakes and the “ugly” parts that we learn and grow. If we focused only on the “perfect” path without any chance of failure, we would miss out on the lessons, the experiences and the surprises that shape our lives and give them meaning.
And really, that’s what we should be striving for: just being in the moment, experiencing life as it is and as we are, flaws and all.
Love, Beth xxx
