In a continuing journey of self-awareness over the past 6 or 7 years of my life, there has been a recurring “problem child”: perfectionism.
Becoming a Perfectionist
Perfectionism is something that has seeped its way into nearly every facet of my life – my relationships (or at least my perception of them), my home, my work, my possessions. There is a never-ceasing, deep-seated need for perfection in my life. Maybe “need” isn’t the right word for it, more like desire. I know where it originated. I was a band kid in high school, and if you were a band kid in high school, you know exactly why I turned out this way… one more time…
Marching band, and the performing arts in general, taught me to never be satisfied with “good enough.” It taught me to continue to push and push until it is the best that it could ever possibly be. So many times I fell short of that, and thus began my perfectionism. With every missed opportunity to take home another award or trophy, the further I pushed to be better – to a toxic and tiring degree. As with most perfectionists, when I didn’t achieve perfection, I felt unwavering guilt, depression, and for me, anxiety. I felt… out of control.
Perfectionism Consuming My Life
Since perfectionism seeped its way into my life, I’ve felt a lot of lingering effects. The main one being that, whenever I fail to achieve perfection, I feel my life grind to a screeching halt. I become so overwhelmed that not everything is perfect. My apartment is too dirty, my partner didn’t say something to me the correct way, this photo I took or video I shot did not turn out the way I had hoped, or it wasn’t good enough. Other examples include being stressed because I didn’t do something 100% the way I intended to – i.e. I didn’t clean the apartment this weekend, or I didn’t vacuum yesterday, or I didn’t fold the blankets the right way. There’s also perfectionism about my appearance. Does my hair look the right way? Is this shirt too big? This is admittedly where I experience perfectionism in the worst ways.
In the age of social media, perfectionism has been amped up to eleven. In an effort to keep up with the carefully curated life of the Jones’, we have collectively made our mental health worse. Social media has made it so easy to hide any flaws in your life, any loose threads, or imperfections in your appearance, social life, work life, and most definitely our possessions. Before social media, it was something we gravitated towards when in person with other people. Now it is in our pockets, in front of our eyes, in the back of our heads. Twenty. Four. Seven. We want so badly to have the approval of others, to feel like we have it all together. We yearn to look beautiful or handsome in the eyes of others online, to have the coolest gadgets and gizmos. And in the pursuit of all of this, we have slowly eroded our ability to be still. To be okay with our imperfections, or as I like to call them, the things that make us human.
How do you escape it?
Perfectionism is something that you should approach similarly to mental health. Defeating it is, dare I say, damn near impossible. I’ve been fighting it for so long, and it continues to feel like it will never go away. Therapy is a good first step – one of which I know not everyone has the luxury of being able to afford (myself included). Meditation and deep breathing have been helpful for me when my need for perfection becomes overwhelming. There are myriad of books out there. You can check out this post from the community over at r/BettermentBookClub for some recommendations. Put yourself into scenarios where you can experience imperfection without it being detrimental to you, your mental health, or to someone else. Examples include: spontaneous social events or outings with friends, reading, and probably the best outlet for it, journaling.
Become comfortable with examining yourself. Reflect on scenarios where you’ve felt perfectionism gripping you and why it did and how you can better combat it next time. It will get easier, but it will never be… perfect.
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