episode 66: perfectionism isn't about being perfect

Listen to this week’s episode here. Transcript below.

For this week’s topic, I’m going to address a giant misperception, and it’s something I feel that really tends to keep us stuck in our own progress toward goals or toward personal development in general.  This is one of those things that sometimes we will look up to in other people, but in reality, we need to start questioning whether or not this is a good thing, and what the motivation behind it really is.  This topic is perfectionism.

What’s wrong with wanting to be perfect?  We all need to strive for better, right?  When it comes to making progress, we need to be strategic and look for the right time to take action, right?

I am here to tell you - absolutely not.

I am myself a recovering perfectionist, and I will fully admit to you here that it’s been a massive crutch and a way to avoid really putting myself out there for most of my life.  This is something I have literally struggled with since I was a tiny girl.  I remember an incident with my mom, maybe when I was 4 or 5 years old, and I wanted to make a scrapbook.  Not buy an album and fill it with my scraps, but rather make a book from scratch and then fill that up with my little kid drawings and mementos and such.  I could see the book in my head, and I could totally picture what it needed to look like.  My mom, at the time, was a kindergarten teacher, so she had a ton of stuff around the house for crafts.  She outfitted me in my bedroom with all the things I could possibly need, and I went about trying to create what my brain had envisioned.  But - I had little kid hands.  And nothing came out how I wanted it to as a result.

My mom told this story to people for years about what happened next.  I got super frustrated when I saw the book finished, because it looked like a little kid made it.  So, I tore it up and threw it away.

I can’t tell you how many times I repeated this kind of metaphoric behavior in my adult life.  Not just with tasks or creations, but with jobs or career choices and even friendships.  Like I said, it’s been a lifelong issue for me.  Can’t live up to standards in my head?  Throw it away and move along.

Am I unique in this?  I don’t really think so.  Maybe I’ve been more dramatic than others in how my past perfectionism has presented itself, but a lot of people do the same thing by throwing out the proverbial baby with the bathwater and just saying “screw it, I’m done, why bother.”

Some folks will say - we should strive to be perfect, and that kind of behavior is actually good.  “Only put your best foot forward,” right?  I get where that’s coming from, but it sets an impossible standard.  No one’s perfect.  And no one can put on a perfect front day after day after day, being the best they can be.  Guess what?  Everyone - even your heroes - will have bad days.  Everyone struggles, even if you don’t see it.  Everyone looks bad in photos sometimes.  Everyone gets a bad nights sleep and lashes out on occasion.  Everyone has stupid arguments with their spouse or partner or loved ones.  Everyone has moments of weakness that may or may not involve eating a dozen cookies (not speaking from experience there at all.). Why?  We’re human and that’s just part of life.  It’s not something we should be ashamed of or try to hide or curate behind a perfect instagram feed.  It’s time to normalize imperfection.

I would like to propose here that perfectionism is a toxic behavior, and while we should strive to be the best versions of ourselves, we need to accept that no matter how hard we try, we’re never ever going to reach perfection.  And what would even be the point in that?  Why bother living if you’re already perfect?  What else would there even be to do in this crazy journey?

So where does this type of behavior come from?  I think it comes from a variety of places, but I can speak of two from my own experience.  One way perfectionism arises is from a point of trauma response.  In my case, it was from a troubled childhood where very high standards were set by my family that were basically unreachable.  And to get love or validation of my feelings, I always had to “achieve” something.  I often had to earn that kind of parental love that really should just be a given.  I think this happens to a lot of kids, especially if their parents have psychological issues or trauma histories themselves, and it ends up becoming this endless cycle.  I know it manifested for me in continually feeling like I had to be an “achiever” in all aspects of my life in order to have a relationship or friends or to even be noticed or seen as a valid human.  But I’m here to tell you this - by default, you are worthy of good relationships and of being loved.  That is not something one should have to EARN.  That’s a basic human need - and right.

A second way perfectionism comes about as a life pattern?  That’s often due to gross insecurity, and this is often where I see it in daily life.  Here’s an example - I had a young gal working for me at my tattoo studio for a while that was really really slow at tattooing, which was fine, because she was young and new to the business.  And she would tell her clients, oh, yeah, my boss is faster than me, but I’m a perfectionist and that’s why it takes me so long to do a tattoo.  No, no no - not the case.  There was definitely a huge thread of insecurity in that artist.  And perfectionism became the excuse why she felt like she wasn’t living up to some kind of standard she had set up in her head, likely in comparison to how quickly I work, but that’s only because I’ve been in the business for years so it’s not even comparable.  Apples and oranges, you know?  That’s just one example from real life, but another way we can see this - and I’ll cop to having done this, even with this podcast - is waiting until something is perceived as perfect before putting it out there into the world.  I stewed on doing this podcast for a couple of years, and even wrote and recorded a bunch of stuff.  And I kept waiting and waiting until the perceived “right time.”  But it never came.  I kept finding things to improve, new equipment I had to buy, a new website that had to be set in place with the perfect SEO, and waiting until I felt like I had a “real following”…until one day, I just said screw it, I’m doing this, and if people listen, cool.  If people think I’m nuts for doing this, cool.  If no one pays attention, whatever.  It doesn’t matter.  I feel called to do this and I’m just going to go for it, and I’ll figure it out along the way.  And hey, here I am, 66 episodes and more than a year in.  And hopefully this podcast is helping you, even though it’s not at all perfect!

So for you, are you stuck waiting for the right moment to do what you really want to do?  Are you trying to make yourself perfect to get recognition or validation?  Are you afraid of putting yourself out there, so you feel like you need to make yourself or a project perfect before you can really go for a goal?  You’re not alone, and here are some ways to get unstuck.

One - tell yourself this as a mantra daily.  “There is no right time for anything.”  There’s not.  Really.  I’m not telling you to throw all caution to the wind and never plan for anything, but I am telling you that if you spend your life waiting for the perfect circumstances for anything - that “oh the sign that this is meant to be” moment - that is never going to come and you’re going to spend your most valuable resource of your time on something that’s never going to happen.  So, do some planning, and just - as my husband always tells me - go do the thing.  You’ll figure it out along the way.

Two - accept the truth that there is always going to be someone better than you at any one given thing.  There will be someone with a bigger following.  With more money.  More success.  Smarter.  More organized.  But - WHO CARES.  Stop using that as an excuse to not even try.  Oh, you can’t live up to someone else’s standard?  As I’ve said before in an early episode of this podcast, run your own race, and just try to beat your own standards.  We’re all that experiment of one, after all, and your journey is yours and yours alone and it’s incomparable to someone else’s.

Three - stop using perfectionism as an excuse to HIDE.  “Oh, I’ve gotta get this business plan just right before I start my business.”  “I’ve gotta get this website just right first before I launch this online course.”  “I’ve gotta get my house in shape first before I make this leap.”  There is a certain comfort in perfectionism.  It gives us a linear journey to cling to, and keeps us in a state of movement toward a certain “there” that is unattainable.  That’s life inertia right there.  Continually moving toward something that’s not possible is familiar.  And it’s damn uncomfortable to say, heck with it, I’m done with this, let’s just move on to what we really want to do.  Something to try is to do something on a regular basis that feels uncomfortable.  Go take a new class.  Talk to someone you don’t know.  Accept the invitation to a social event where you don’t know a soul.  Stretch yourself, and know that hey, not everyone’s going to like you or validate you or care about you.  And you know what?  It doesn’t matter.  Do you care about yourself?  Do you like yourself?  THAT is all that matters.  Stop hiding from the world behind the shield of perfectionism.