I’ll have a go at this, but I'll probably never finish it, or come to the perfect conclusion.
As you may have noticed, through my writing and blog posts, perfectionism is a large part of my life (if not, where have you been?), and I suspect that many people struggle with this also.
While perfectionism can be a good thing in controlled dosages, it can be debilitating. A certain amount of stress, drive, and concentration allows us to perform at our best — but if the stress becomes too much, we end up freezing and not doing much at all.
If anything, we dig that neat little hole ever deeper.
Acknowledging this is part of your life is the best place to start. It is often suggested that perfectionism is a bad trait by default and — as already discussed — I can see where this perception comes from. However, true to form, I have found a slight caveat within that; one you might find very useful.
Perfectionism can mean that we spend too long on a task, only to achieve ‘average’ results when considering the amount of effort put in. It’s a pretty gutting feeling, I know.
From experience, something I perceive as fairly mediocre of myself would be perceived as wonderful by a friend. Putting aside the fact that they are your friend, and could be biased in that sense, it goes to show how important the outside perspective and looking at the bigger picture is. At the very least, it reminds me that I am being hard on myself. I would previously defend my thirst to get everything just perfect with my being ambitious and wanting to achieve great things, but not now. My striving to achieve does not detract from my need to be kind to myself.
I am so hard on myself. I have realised that, whatever I do, I will struggle to appreciate the gravity or value of what I am doing without conscious acknowledgement. In some ways, this is helpful because it keeps me humble: no matter what I do, or what I achieve, I am no better than the next person — I am merely in a different place in life.
However, there comes a point (frighteningly quickly as it turns out), when I start belittling my own achievements — and that’s before anyone else has the chance to crushingly bring me back to Earth.
As I regularly say, if I can't cheer myself on, how can I expect anyone else to?
This is where boundaries come in very handy, and not always in the restrictive sense. For example, I am putting in time each week, each day, to reflect on all that I have achieved — and where I would like to go. This blog comes as part of that. That way, whenever and wherever I start putting myself down, and feel the need to prove myself that much more, I have a tangible reminder of all that I have achieved. I am not neglecting myself.
I am reminding myself of where I am, so I don't let the perfectionism and anxiety spiral. And, ironically, our perfectionism can help with that.
I am good enough, and so are you. Looking at something so personal objectively is hard, but we can do this.
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