Odd, isn’t it? Odd to think that being “Perfect” could be a bad thing. Sure, striving for excellence is amazing and very telling of a person. It just goes on to show that he/she simply wants to grow and do better at whatever they take up.
That’s gotta be impressive!
As amazing as this sounds, I’d quickly like to burst the bubble for all the fellow Perfectionists out there (I’m an Ex-Perfectionist) that Perfectionism is NOT the way to go about it because NEWSFLASH: There is nothing in this world called “Perfect”.
This is Real Life
This is real life and real life is always ALWAYS messy and no matter what you do or how hard you try, I can assure you that nothing in your life will be PERFECT and guess what? That’s OKAY. That’s perfectly okay.
So, why is ‘Perfectionism’ really doomed? Because it deludes you into believing that you can achieve flawlessness and in the process of achieving that flawlessness, what you are indeed doing is signing up for constant disappointment and perceived failure. The result?
You’re NEVER happy and we all know how important happiness is when it comes to doing pretty much anything in life. We put ourselves through difficult situations and struggle in life in the hopes that we’ll be happy when we finally overcome these hardships.
So, in order to be happy and have a better quality of life, let go of Perfectionism because Happiness and Perfection CANNOT go hand-in-hand.
People’s Perspective on Perfectionists
People are used to looking at Perfectionists in such good light that they almost aspire to be one but have you ever wondered what goes on in a Perfectionist’s brain?
Hint: Crippling anxiety, thoughts of perceived incompetence, harsh criticism, and procrastination to say the LEAST. I personally feel so strongly about Perceived Incompetence. I’ve spent YEARS trying to banish this feeling of not being enough but it just wouldn’t go away. Why?
Because nothing will ever be perfect for a perfectionist. They seek and seek and seek but 0, nill, none, nada. Even though the reality could be that they performed an act really well, a perfectionist will always find a way to convince themselves that they’re still not good enough because they aren’t “Perfect”.
In fact, good enough is actually an insult to a perfectionist. No amount of Perfection is Perfect and can you imagine what that can do to a person’s mental peace?
You can right? Thought so!
Now there’s a difference between a Realistic Perfectionist and a Delusional Perfectionist.
A Realistic Perfectionist will always do things to the best of their ability and that is their “Perfect”, which is the category I’ve thankfully walked into.
A Delusional Perfectionist will try to perfect every area of their life and even though they must be pretty darn good at doing all of those things, they’re still pretty discontent.
Your Self-Image
Here is where your self-image screws with you. To people, you’re extremely inspirational: A person who doesn’t half-ass anything but in your head, you start to believe you’re a loser only because you never end up meeting these huge unrealistic standards that you set for yourself.
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An example to explain this better would suffice:
You aim for A. By the time you reach A, you’ve already aimed for B. You reach B. By the time…
It’s trap. A cycle so hard for a lot of us to break. Not to forget just how easy it is to slip back into this loop.
So what does one do? TRY.
It’s all I knew, it’s all I did.
Did it work? Initially, no. Eventually, yes but it took me a lot of resistance towards relapsing, patience, and a truck-load of self-awareness but understanding how Perfectionism curbs your growth was essential and this goes for everyone reading this right now.
Know that Excellence will always be better than Perfectionism for Perfectionism will ask for a lot from you. Sometimes even for your Mental Peace. So the question to really ask ourselves is, “Is perfectionism really worth losing our Mental Sanity and Peace over?”
Nope… I don’t think so.
