3 Ways Perfectionism Nearly Ruined Me
The Message
Perfectionism is a powerful force to reckon with; one which grabs onto our ankles and drags us down into deep pits of slow accomplishments, paralyzing fear, and ultimately burn-out. If this is you, it is ok; you are not alone; we can overcome.
Disclaimer: I am not a doctor. Please take all of this as a well-intentioned, anecdotal way of communing on the hardships of being an adult in a digital age. Be sure to use your best judgment on what works for you and what doesn’t, using a licensed therapist or doctor as you see fit.
Table of Contents
Things I Do
Notice: I use the word “practice”. Each of these actions take regular, persistent, mindful practice. I’ve chosen to steer from “calls to action”. I don’t want to pile onto your list of things you “should” or “shouldn’t” be doing. These are practices I use in my recovery from perfectionism, which I do feel the need to note is very much a work-in-progress.
I Practice Creativity
I practice creativity by starting simply, watching YouTube videos of experts, and finding low-cost kits to help me get started. I’ve tried:
Collaging (old magazines, computer paper, glue, and scissors are all I started with)
Knitting
Virtual acrylic painting classes where I can buy a kit to get started
Digital design using Canva (free version available, but I love and use it so much I purchase Pro every year)
I Practice Mindfulness
“Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.” ~Viktor E. Frankl
I practice mindfulness, in the form of meditation, self-reflection, and journaling. To be clear, not every day do I complete all three. Sometimes it’s a subset. Each day, I just do my best. I got started by:
Meditating for 2-5 minutes a day using the “breathe” app on my Apple watch
Reading Emotional Alchemy
Journaling, with the default prompt to list a few things I’m grateful for, especially when I’m in a bad mood
I Practice Bravery
Bravery is a skill, not something granted at birth. Skills can be developed. Whenever greeted with something new to do or try, I employ a simple calculation to ensure the risk of not doing something is worse than the risk of trying something new and failing. Things I do regularly to practice are:
Cooking something I’ve never cooked before; take-out is always a great back-up
Making or writing something (creative!)
Going to a class to learn something new, like Jiu Jitsu or Yoga
Habit Venn Diagram
In my past I’ve focused on life-things that led me to burnout, the building blocks of which are modeled in a venn diagram where not only is the center overlap toxic, but I found individual overlaps to be problems for myself as well. Recently I’ve been working to shift my focus from making a steady paycheck and letting my perfectionism get the better of me to a life with more mindfulness and thoughtful equanimity. My hope is to shift from a cycle of burnout, which is getting shorter and shorter, and more and more dramatic each major life-change, to one of unstoppable, peaceful freedom.
Way I: Not Starting
The first way perfectionism nearly ruins me is by preventing me from starting something new. This shows up for me in various examples and has single-handedly held me back in prioritizing my health and following through long-term on owning a business (until now!).
For me, perfectionism & not starting can be summarized simply:
Not doing something because I’ve found a flaw, no matter how minor, in the environment - either a resource is missing, time isn’t aligned exactly as I’d like or planned, or perceived lack of knowledge.
While certainly there are cases where this is legitimate, such as in baking, where if I’m missing a key ingredient or tool I’m unable to complete the science needed for tasty baked goods. But nine times out of ten, I’m making an excuse based in fear. Often it’s fear of failing after trying. Often it’s fear of what others will think if I make a mistake or look goofy attempting something new.
Over the years I’ve practiced overcoming this obstacle. In fact, I have a reputation for being “fearless” with regards to data work, trying new jobs, and cooking new recipes. This comes with great mental strain. What may appear to be “fearlessness” on the outside is actually well trained, methodical, and strategic bravery. Sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn’t.
It all boils down to a simple equation. What are the risks of trying something, and failing? What are the opportunity costs of not doing something entirely? Which one outweighs the other? I top this exercise off with one last one. If I decide to try something, what is the worst possible outcome and my plan for dealing with it? That’s it. Depending on the decision, I can run this calculation very quickly in my head, or it might take me days or weeks, but ultimately, this model has helped me overcome my perfectionism schema to do things like, pick up Italian as a major at the 101 level in college, move to a city where I knew no one to try a new job, show up to my first [yoga, jiu jitsu] class, and most importantly, try a new career path entirely.
Trying creative endeavors, getting feedback, and accepting that not everything turns out exactly as I expected or desired, is a great way to practice bravery with minimal risks or costs. Being creative forces me to start somewhere, no matter how simple, and keep practicing and building on the skills until I’m working on more advanced patterns or imagery.
It’s not easy, but over time, I have learned I have the skills, resources, and persistence to problem solve most anything. Where I get stuck, I have a support network to bring in and supplement my knowledge. Those combined pieces of knowledge build a mindful trust helping me to overcome perfectionism as a very real obstacle to starting anything new.
Way II: Not Stopping
Once I start something, new or old, I know with enough effort and resources I will accomplish the task at hand. This typically shows up to most folks as “persistence” or “strong work ethic”. Persistence without self-awareness and mindfulness, though, is a guise for hyper-focused activity, eventually leading to burnout. Beyond perfectionism stopping me from starting, it also prevents me from stopping; it stops me from “completing” or feeling something is “good enough, even if for just now”. When I do stop, I resent the project for taking too long, sometimes the people involved for being too needy, myself for not being better / faster, and my body for not feeling better. After all this, I need some serious recovery time in the hopes that it’s not too late to redeem my physical and mental health.
My résumé, to the untrained eye, looks like a lot of pivots. Like most people who don’t have a singular passion or calling, I have the appearance, I imagine, of someone who is flailing a bit in the traditional sense of “work”. In all fairness, I do flail a bit regarding the traditional sense of “work”, so in this case, appearances are what they are. If I have an opportunity to sit and tell you my life story, you’ll notice the threads I have been weaving - the ones that tie my Italian BA to my Math BA to my time pouring coffee to my time teaching yoga, all while growing data skills that landed me a dream-job at a dream-company until I “pivoted” from that too. I’ll spare you; trust me - the threads exist (I recommend this book - Body of Work).
I am no expert in life, but I do think I’m close to being an expert in quitting. It’s one of my go-to pieces of advice, typically unsolicited, which is the best kind: “If you don’t like it, stop doing it.” This shows up in self-help books as “the thing that no longer serves you.” Or maybe something like “a toxic relationship”. I like to see my advice as being permission for people to consider something they typically aren’t allowed to consider: quitting; letting go; dumping.
How often do we, as a society, tout the importance of “keep moving”, “hanging in there”, “weathering the storm”, etc? What if, though, it’s not a storm, but more of a persistent climate that will never change? Storms come and go. Shitty climate (global warming as a big aside) doesn’t. What if, though, no one is coming to help? “Hanging in there” implies something or someone will catch us, pull us up, or we have the strength to pull ourselves up. Sometimes you just need to take the damages of a fall and move on with your life. What if there’s no moving to keep on? If we’re stagnant, or every time we need to accomplish even the smallest task it requires the energy of moving a completely inert object again, then we can’t keep on. Sometimes it’s easier to start moving again, but right into a different direction or in a different mode.
The perfectionist in me doesn’t like quitting. It’s very difficult to know if / when the time is appropriate. It’s very difficult to admit “failure” of whatever type of thing I’m quitting because “quitting” has such a negative connotation. For example, when moving back to Western NY after a brief time in Boston, MA, I was convinced everyone was going to think I “failed at Boston.” Yet the “oh, couldn’t make it in Boston, eh?” judgments came from surprisingly few people. Maybe there were others who thought it, but few actually said the words out loud, and those who did were people who rarely try anything outside their comfort zone. Most people were quite supportive and welcomed me back. Some folks, those who had previously moved away and came back, said “I told you so… you missed Wegmans, didn’t you?” (note - I lived in Boston before there was a Wegmans there).
One of the most powerful ways perfectionism has almost ruined me is by not giving me the mental space to quit in a peaceful way. I spend weeks or months battling myself, analyzing the numbers, trying to logically test different social experiments, anything that can salvage the thing I know in my gut and heart I need to quit. During those weeks and months I’m a terrible version of myself, doing no good for my coworkers, friends, and most importantly, my family. This creates this cycle of berating myself for not “being better”, not being the perfect “X”, and spiraling down an unhealthy pit right towards burnout.
And then I quit. I typically do it in as-graceful-a-way I can muster, but the next morning I wake up with a huge weight lifted. After Boston, this manifested as a trip to Wegmans where I walked around, nothing to buy, just trying to lock eyes with someone so I could say: “I just love Wegmans.” Or like a more recent time when I was lugging a 50.0 lbs suitcase, a quite heavy carry-on, and a back-pack full of electronics for many hours, and seeing my partner, our car, the end of my journey, and I just let go, literally. The bags rolled, and he took over, and I said: “Yeah I’m done. I’ve done enough.” Literal weight I no longer had to deal with. Figurative weight I no longer had to deal with. It’s all the same. Some types of weight other people can see, and some weight people can’t, but weight is weight, and dumping it feels like a relief in every figurative and literal way.
A great way I practice quitting: I stop reading books I hate. Seriously. I return them to the library or donate them. I’ve shifted my mentality from counting the number of full books to the number of pages I’ve read. I give myself partial credit and a pat on the back for not wasting my precious energy and time on something that “no longer serves me.”
If this resonates at all with you: It’s not quitting if it’s pivoting. Sometimes the brave thing to do is quit, and knowing when is one of the most important adult skills to have.
Way III: Not Letting Go of my List(s)
Fact is: I can’t do “it all” “all of the time”. I can’t be everything to everyone. I can’t hit all of my desired “good habits” 100% every day. This used to make me crazy. Made me feel like a failure - like I was never going to amount to anything, like I was letting everyone down around me.
One of the major causes of my anxiety, triggered by my perfectionism, is what I call “Inspiration Fatigue.” When someone would make a logical recommendation for a way for me to improve myself or my life, then I would add it to a growing list of things to do, and when I couldn’t complete those things, I let feelings of failure take over.
Inspiration Fatigue*: exhaustion from trying, and likely failing, to perfectly execute on someone else’s idea of a perfect [day, list of habits, business model, workout, etc]; anxiety from listening or reading too much self-help to no avail; lack of ability to reconcile how “you’re enough” at the same time as “improving 1% each day” and having “a beginner’s mind”.
*I’ve made this up entirely based on my experience with the self-help industry. You won’t find it on Google. Please consult a doctor or accountability partner before endeavoring on major life changes based on anything you read here.
Fast forward many hours in therapy and a “self-help-book-purchasing-ban” and my mental health has improved significantly. Here are some real-life mental exercises I do:
Borrow a self-help book from the library. If it’s about mindfulness and improves my awareness around something, and I feel the need to have it handy, I’ll buy it. If it generates feelings of anxiety in any form, I stop and return it immediately.
No longer listen to podcasts that are even remotely “self-help”. I don’t want to hear about all of the things I could be doing better from a stranger on a podcast. I have a partner and therapist for relevant feedback and priorities.
Check myself when comparing my worst moments to other people’s best on social media. Similarly, check myself when I’m comparing my beginnings with someone’s middle or end.
Journal & self-reflect. Acknowledge how I feel, try and identify patterns of behavior, and practice regular gratitude for what I did do, what did go well, and how I did show up.
Mediate, lately using the mantra: “[You don’t, it doesn’t, circumstances don’t] need to be perfect; you just need to show up.”
In the book Emotional Alchemy (I’m over-simplifying… but you’ll get my point), the author prescribes mindfulness as the underlying method for overcoming a lot of our personality schemas that hold us back from successful relationships and careers. The five above strategies I use are all derivations of just that. I work hard to bring my attention to resources that generate growth, not anxiety. In order to recognize and differentiate those feelings, I spend a lot of time studying myself and how I react to triggers. By bringing awareness to these triggers and my habitual reactions, I can create a space where I don’t have to react the same way I always do. Instead of blindly falling into a trap of feelings of anxiety, I can “check myself”. Eventually, this leads to a rewiring of my brain and, over time, something that took effort becomes effortless.
Endings
The purpose of this post is to tell my story in the event there are others out there who struggle in the same ways I do. I find that when I talk to people, with or without wine, I say something out-of-the-ordinary, and get a resounding “Me too, but I thought it was just me.” It might be the case that you can’t relate to the above, but maybe you know someone who can. Maybe there’s someone in your life that battles perfectionism in ways that hinder your relationship with them. I hope this raises awareness, builds community, and gives you permission to be just how you are, where you are, and know you’re not alone.
In what ways do you cope with perfectionism (either as the person who personally struggles with it, or as a loved-one)?
