ON BEING PERFECT

I am a perfectionist. Or more accurately I like to think that I am a recovering perfectionist. I’ve been doing a lot of soul searching in this issue in the past few months, and it’s definitely a learning process every day as I try to identify all the ways that I let perfectionism drive me.

Perfectionism is the belief and practice that I have to do everything perfect in order to be good enough, to avoid blame and judgment from others, or to avoid feeling shame about myself.

If I live out of perfectionism, I essentially give myself zero room for failure or shortcomings. I give myself zero grace. I have to be perfect. Not just do perfect things, but be perfect. The sad thing is that when I extend zero grace to myself and don’t allow myself to make mistakes, this can often cross-over to extending zero or very little grace to others for their failures and shortcomings, which, by the way, we all have. Everyone single one of us have failures and shortcomings. If we didn’t, we wouldn’t be human.

Perfectionism is a way to hide, really. It’s an effort to put up a front so that people will only see what we think they want to see. It’s offering only what we perceive will be received. Perfectionism is a way to protect from rejection and judgement. If I am perfect, you will love me and want me. If I am not, then you will find something you don’t appreciate in me and therefore not love me and not want me. Perfectionism essentially builds up huge walls of pretending in our heart. We offer only what is perfect, which means we can’t offer all of who we are.

For example, I made a batch of muffins last night for Ben to take to work for an early morning meeting. I used a new recipe and it really didn’t turn out very nicely, or rather, didn’t turn out perfectly. The tops were a little crispy and they didn’t look like the gorgeous, mouth-watering apple muffins I had envisioned in my mind as I was putting them together (you know, those pictures we see in our minds of pulling a tray of something delicious from the oven as steams surrounds us and everyone exclaiming over how perfect and tasty it looks and then feeling like such a divine domestic because of our amazing accomplishment…). Now normally I would start really getting down on myself about my failure. The internal voices would start telling me of how awful and horrid these muffins are and that no one will even want to eat them and everyone will realize what a bad cook and wife you are. But I stopped it. I didn’t listen to perfectionism. I didn’t allow my ideals to throw away an almost-perfectly-good batch of muffins in an effort to save myself from potential embarrassment and judgment.

See what perfectionism does is it takes a mistake or a shortcoming (because yes, the muffins were less than ideal) and makes this failure a part of you. Instead of seeing what happened as something outside of yourself and your identity, the mistake is internalized and it becomes a part of us. We let the mistake make us feel like a bad person, instead of just realizing that, yes, I made a mistake. That’s all it is…just a mistake. It is not who you are. I am not a failed batch of muffins. I am a woman who made a batch of muffins that weren’t that great, but I am no less because of it.

It’s right and good to strive for excellence, yes. I want to give this life all I’ve got in whatever arena I’m in, whether that’s the kitchen, or a job, or a relationship. I want my work and efforts to be excellent, but that is different than perfect.

Be excellent, not perfect. Give yourself grace, so you can give grace to those around you. Fail, learn, and grow.

What about you: do you find yourself struggling with perfectionism? What are your thoughts about perfectionism and how it plays out in your life?

I’d love to hear your thoughts!