On perfectionism and why it's bullshit.
We’ve been diving into my favorite kinds of conversations – breaking down how to get started examining our intentions, owning our worthiness, and finally creating the lasting changes we’ve always wanted to make.
That all sounds great, I’m sure, but…what happens when we mess up? Or when the vulnerability that change requires – the openness to admitting that we could use some help – becomes overwhelming and feels like admitting defeat?
I am the QUEEN of perfectionism. Well, formerly – I’ve learned to relinquish my title. But the tendencies remain: when faced with a challenge I’m not sure how to complete, my gut-wrenching instinct is to pretend like I’ve got it all down (how could I? I’ve never done it before!), tell everyone it’s going great (cue internal scream), research every single possibility ever of how to get the challenge done and what could go wrong to try to make myself feel better, but really just total paralysis (“paralysis by analysis”, I think some other professional perfectionist procrastinator named it), and I never really GET EFFING STARTED.
Sound familiar? Maybe no – everyone has their own way of avoiding action in the face of uncertainty. But, next time you’re faced with the unfamiliar, examine your instincts, *especially* if your avoidance tactic leads to you not getting shit done (it does for everyone, somewhere).
Many of us are perfectionists – women especially, but men too. We feel this ridiculously strong urge to put up a front – to make sure that, no matter how we feel on the inside (rage/insecure/tears/screaming/terrified/confident, even – you name it), on the outside, we’ve got it together. Never let ‘em see you sweat, and all that jazz. Because, if people *think* we’ve got it down, then they’ll bow to our expertise and acknowledge our worthiness and we’ll finally feel at peace in the face of risk…right?
Wrong.
Perfectionism is a shield. It’s a defense move: the belief that if we do things perfectly and look physically perfect while doing it, we will avoid judgment, shame, and/or blame. It’s not about our internal motivation at all. Perfectionism is ALL about other people and trying to earn their approval; it’s correlated with depression, anxiety, and addiction; and, perhaps most frustratingly, it impedes our achievement, because it throws the fear of failure/meeting *OTHER PEOPLE’S* expectations (rather than our own) in our faces, thereby keeping us out of the arena of really trying.
Remember: we are not what we accomplish or how well we accomplish it. There is no need to go into the “please-perform-perfect” cycle (as Brene Brown calls it…meaning, in this cycle, we get wrapped up in the belief that if we perform well, we are perceived as perfect and make other people happy, avoiding the pain of shame.). A tough cycle to break, certainly! But one worth mounting our courage to escape.
Where perfectionism lets us off the hook (when we’re operating in this mode, we never truly engage with our whole selves, but the version we *think* the world wants), being deeply rooted in our worthiness puts us right back on the hook. We realize it’s a waste of time to evaluate our value by weighing the reactions of people who aren’t doing anything. And we realize that perfectionism is all about other people’s perceptions of us, which we can’t control anyway.
You know that quote? “There’s a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in.” The beautiful thing about people who act/create/exist in spite of the desire to appear perfect is that they appreciate the beauty of the cracks. Rather than trying to predict what other people want and how they can best accomplish it in order to be deemed worthy of love and belonging, people who don’t hide behind perfectionism already know that they are. They practice engaging from this place of worthiness to show up with a childlike innocence, letting themselves try, fail, and be seen. They risk failure to use their gifts, knowing that what matters is their courage, transparency, honesty, and willingness to try.
Note: I said “practice” because IT IS A PRACTICE. Just like gratitude, compassion, forgiveness, and the like, I believe that’s something we work at every day. Perfectionism, I’ve found, is a continuum, dependent on the person and the situation and the fears at play. We all struggle with this – totally normal! So how do we overcome it to cultivate a resilience to anxiety and uncertainty?
Self-compassion, which, according to Dr. Kristin Neff (she runs the Self-Compassion Research Lab in Austin, Texas, which is a sweet reminder that you really can make a career out of your passion), has three elements, is key in bucking the pressure of the perfectionist monkey on your back. Remembering these three things has helped me step back into my power and break the “paralysis by analysis” + performance-based worthiness cycle:
1. Self-kindness: “being warm and understanding toward ourselves when we suffer, fail, or feel inadequate, rather than ignoring our pain or flagellating ourselves with self-criticism.”
2. Common humanity: “common humanity recognizes that suffering and feelings of personal inadequacy are part of the shared human experience – something we all go through rather than something that happens to ‘me’ alone.”
3. Mindfulness: “taking a balanced approach to negative emotions so that feelings are neither suppressed nor exaggerated. We cannot ignore our pain and feel compassion for it at the same time. Mindfulness requires that we not ‘over-identify’ with thoughts and feelings, so that we are caught up and swept away by negativity.”
In short, self-compassion is recognizing that feeling like you suck after something didn’t work out well is normal, you’re okay, and, although not ideal, also not the end of the world. In fact, it’s often times just the beginning.
