How striving for perfection can hold us back

I’m going to let you into a secret: I’ve been working on this article for a year.

I mean, I’ve done other things too, like having a baby, taking said baby and her two-year-old sister to Japan, going back to work, and trying to function like a regular human being on little-to-no sleep. But still, it’s taken me a looooong time. And valid excuses and major life events aside, part of the reason it’s taken me so much time to finish this article is because I want it (and everything else) to be perfect.

And it’s OK to want things to be perfect, right? By aiming for perfect, don’t we end up living our best life, in a shoot-for-the-stars-and-you’ll-reach-the-moon kind of way? Unfortunately not. Writer and perfectionism guru Brené Brown highlights that perfectionism is not the same thing as personal growth or striving to be your best. In fact, perfectionism often comes from a place of fear:

Perfectionism is a self-destructive and addictive belief system that fuels this primary thought: if I look perfect, and do everything perfectly, I can avoid or minimise the painful feelings of shame, judgement and blame.
From The Gifts of Imperfection by Brené Brown

Perfectionism is as old as mankind. Voltaire famously advised that ‘perfect is the enemy of the good’ while Aristotle, Confucius and other classical philosophers advocated the ‘golden mean’ and the avoidance of extremes. But while perfectionism isn’t anything new, it is certainly fuelled by today’s fast-paced comparison culture.

Our tendency to focus on our own flaws and shortcomings rather than on what we’re good at or what’s going well in our lives can be exacerbated by both social and mainstream media. We end up wondering why our skin doesn’t look air-brushed, our butts don’t look perky, our kids aren’t eating kale pancakes and our homes don’t look like the cover of the Kinfolk catalogue. From there comes a feeling that nothing we do is ever good ‘enough’, infusing both our conscious and subconscious minds with a low-level hum of dissatisfaction and frustration.

To alleviate some of the physical effects of perfectionism try José’s Yin Yoga class:

Soften your diaphragm

As we grow older, perfectionism finds more and more chances to thrive. My own perfectionist tendencies started with the closet need to get straight-As at school and look a certain way (eventually leading, as often happens, to a whole host of body-image issues). But now perfectionism, if I let it, can intrude on every aspect of my life. It tells me that to be the ‘perfect’ mum I must not only have two perpetually happy children but also maintain a regular exercise routine, a thriving career, a clear sense of purpose and some meaningful way of ‘giving back’ – all the while being a supportive and sexy partner with a vibrant social life and an army of great friends, and still finding time for a creative outlet and a regular spiritual practice. And oh yeah, I mustn’t forget to prioritise ‘me’ time and get eight hours sleep….

I feel exhausted just thinking about it. And where does it end? What about the days when simply getting through to bedtime feels like a monumental achievement? Or the days when you meant to get 25 things accomplished but barely managed one? What about the days of burnt toast and missed deadlines and toddler tantrums where everything is glaringly IMperfect from start to finish?

I need to be wary of living in an alternate reality where I’m striving towards a perfect version of me that is wildly unrealistic – an unattainable me who taunts me smugly (and perfectly) from the future. What about just enjoying all the good things about being the me I am now, rather than setting myself up for constant disappointment by chasing after a different me who never could exist?

Reminders from a recovering perfectionist

I don’t profess to have any answers, I still struggle with perfectionism daily and have to work to keep it in check. But here are some of the reminders that I find to be helpful:

1. Listen for your perfectionist’s voice

Recognise that insidious voice when it starts up a critical inner dialogue about how you should be better or do better in some way. If it helps, externalise your inner perfectionist by giving it a name and then speak back to him/her when the voice gets too loud. Whether that means putting ‘Little Miss Perfect’ or ‘Bob’ firmly back in their boxes, you can start to talk that side of your personality down whenever it pipes up with its unhelpful commentary.

2. Watch out for ‘shoulds’

On a related note, perfectionists need to be very wary of the word ‘should’. I should have taken that job, I should have achieved more by my age, I should be able to get up at 5.30am to do yoga every day—and so it goes on. Kristin Neff, professor of educational psychology and author of ‘Fierce Self-Compassion’, explains that while the ‘shoulds’ can lead to action in the short term, over-‘shoulding’ can reinforce our fears of failing or of falling short. Every time you catch yourself saying it, try to answer, ‘Says who?’ Ask instead, what do you want to do? What would bring you joy or rest or satisfaction right now? ‘Shoulds’ imply a level of obligation but by opening your choices and being less dogmatic with yourself, you can really begin to make the decisions that are good for you.

3. Give credit where it’s due

By reminding yourself of the positives in your life and all that you have managed to achieve, you can start to build your own resilience and confidence. Writing down the things you’re grateful for has become a celebrated tool over recent years, but another one I find extremely helpful is to write down three things that I feel proud of. Whether that’s finally sending an email I’ve been putting off for weeks, posting a letter (old school!), managing a 15-minute yoga class or saying no to a project I know I don’t have the capacity to take on, I’ve found that encouraging myself to celebrate small wins helps to build my confidence and keep my inner perfectionist at bay.

4. Be OK with failure

Perfectionist people tend to be highly critical and judgemental, especially regarding themselves—and this can spill over into having unrealistic expectations of others. Remember that failure is a natural and essential part of growing and learning, rather than a fatal flaw or something to be ashamed of. Many of the people we hail as huge success stories have had career paths full of ‘failures’: J.K Rowling, Steve Jobs, Charles Darwin, Walt Disney…the list goes on. As author Anne Lamott beautifully explains in Bird by Bird: ‘What people somehow …forgot to mention when we were children was that we need to make messes in order to find out who we are and why we are here.’

5. Accept you can’t control everything

I often end up projecting my perfectionist tendencies onto other people or situations. I just want everything to be perfect. I want everyone to be perfectly happy, all the time—and of course, to behave in a way that is perfectly considerate and gracious. But the world doesn’t work like that. I can’t control how much enjoyment someone is getting out of a meal I’ve cooked or whether the bus driver is rude or how my three-year-old behaves at a birthday party after a shed-load of sugar. Allowing the world around us to be imperfect can help us to be more tolerant of our own imperfections (and leaning into it can be surprisingly relaxing!)

6. Don’t listen to ‘why bother?’

Perfectionists can be notorious procrastinators and ruminators (don’t I just know it). ‘I’ll never be fluent in Japanese, so why bother?’, ‘this business idea could very easily fail, so why bother?’, ‘I don’t have time for exercise every day, so why bother?’ It may feel like an easy-come-easy-go approach, but in reality it’s a sign that fear has us in a headlock. Just start doing things anyway, by breaking seemingly insurmountable tasks into bite-sized actions.

Maybe that will mean doing 20 minutes of yoga in your PJs rather than feeling you ‘should’ do a 1.5 hour class, writing for 30 minutes in the morning rather than feeling you ‘ought’ to spend 8 hours producing a best-seller (note to self), launching your own website even if it’s not ‘perfect’ (and by the way, it never will be), or meditating for four minutes rather than feeling you have to keep it up for 30. As Sheryl Sandberg reminds us, ‘Done is better than perfect’. And every time you manage to do something—however small—it will give you the confidence to keep going.

In his brilliant book ‘Four Thousand Weeks’, Oliver Burkeman comments that our actions will always fall short of our imaginations, because in our heads things can be ‘perfect’, while in reality, things never are—which can lead to procrastination as we ‘cherish an ideal fantasy’ rather than resign ourselves to reality ‘with all its limitations and unpredictability’. But acknowledging this can be liberating in itself:

if you’re procrastinating on something because you’re worried you won’t do a good enough job, you can relax—because judged by the flawless standards of your imagination, you definitely won’t do a good enough job. So you might as well make a start.
From Four Thousand Weeks by Oliver Burkeman

Lean into imperfection, together

As my classically ambitious New Year’s resolutions start to fall by the wayside, this seems a good time to remind myself of these things. That, in general, it’s the messiness that makes us human, it’s the messiness that makes us alive. Isn’t there a sense of relief in letting your guard down and showing others that you haven’t always got everything together? And don’t you feel relieved when you see that others aren’t, in fact, perfect? For me, there’s a sense of solidarity in dropping the pretence and leaning into our wildly imperfect lives, together.

I know this article isn’t perfect because at the end of the day there is no such thing. Phew. But hopefully, if you have made it this far, you might have taken something from it. Good on me for putting it out into the world anyway. After all, done is better than perfect.