3 Strategies For The Perfectionist
My most imperfect moment
I was packing myself, nervous to the core… butterflies, fidgety, all those symptoms you feel when something really matters, which you kind of believe defines you. I’m a perfectionist by nature, and I was about to butcher a race and totally embarrass myself. I envisaged the race before me, nothing less than perfection would avoid disappointment.
The marshalling took forever and my edginess sunk deep. It was an inter-school swimming carnival, and my best mate and I stood lining up in the same race. We were always close, first and second place often defined by the smallest of margins. But this race was different; we lined up against boys towering over us, twice our size. All of them wore those shiny speedo goggles that sink into your eye sockets, anything to prevent lag in the water. They all wore speedos showcasing their dedication to the sport… my mate and I had made a pact that we’d never race in budgie smugglers, and can both proudly confirm we wore board shorts in every single event we raced in. So there we stood, board shorts down to our knees. We quickly realised that this race would be different - we would be vying for second last, aiming not to be the last one in the pool. Game on.
As the marshalling line steadily moved forward, I narrowed my eyes on my lane. The starter's whistle blew, signally the next age group to step up to the blocks. By now I’d resolved that this would be an imperfect race, I now just had one aim - to beat my mate. “Don’t come last, don’t come last, don’t come last.” That’s the worst thing that could happen, right?
I stood on the blocks with tunnel vision. Then, I heard the most embarrassing words of my life.
“Not yet mate.”
Huh? Not yet? What? Who?
As I scanned across the starting blocks I realised that I had stepped up to the wrong race. In front of me, my lane had been empty of the female representing their age group, and I’d mistakenly stepped up into the girl's race.
I looked back at the line of smirking boys sporting 6 packs… then looked to the last lane where my best mate was, barely standing, shaking with uncontrollable laughter. I’d made a dog’s breakfast of this race, and I was embarrassed and humiliated to the core! Worse still, my mate was loving every single minute of it.
Ironically, I can’t remember who came second last between my mate and I, but I remember everything else so clearly. It was the most perfectly imperfect race of my life, and I was filthy on myself.
As I look back on that day, I have a good laugh with my mate about it. It was a long time ago and it was a monumental botch up, no doubt hilarious to see. But in the moment it sucked. I felt like the biggest loser on the planet, largely fuelled my perfectionist traits and the way I saw myself in the world. I’m slowly learning to challenge the way I see my mistakes - here are three thoughts for the perfectionist:
#1. Perfectionists often prioritise the product, not the process
Us perfectionists are great at looking at the final product. It’s so often about how it looks, how we come across, or how we expect something to be. Anything less than 100% is a gap - the gap always stands out more than the gain; we can all too easily miss what the process offers us. In that swimming race, I was so focussed on the product beforehand (my placing) and afterward (producing the most embarrassing moment of my life). I festered all day about my mistake, which bred stress and resulted in feeling as though I wasn’t enough. I wish I could have had a good laugh back then and saw it as just a funny story like I can see it now.
#2. Perfectionists can miss out on what imperfection offers us
We strive for connection and belonging, and in our perfectionistic, must always get things right world, we’ve become skilled at hiding imperfection. What if we owned our flaws and shortcomings, doing life as it is, not as what we thought it ought to be? Instead of obsessively worrying about what we look like, what if we widen our lens and embrace life’s gap? Here’s what the gap might offer us:
When we make a mess of things we can learn and become wiser
When we feel we are out of our depth we can choose to get to be brave
When our world is really messy we can become more resilient
When we don’t achieve what we want …. we can find a greater perspective
When we make a fool of ourselves we can develop compassion for others.
#3. Perfectionists add unnecessary distress to their inner world
My expectation of perfection, especially in sport, created an unattainable and unhealthy perspective of my worthiness. Second place was the first loser, and this mindset created an inner world of distress that I tried to hide from others. Over time, this eventually impacted my functioning. I was fearful of mistakes, along with the inevitable gap of not living up to my (or others’) expectation. I over-controlled situations, and eventually avoided them altogether. I focussed on keeping a nice tidy reign on presenting my ‘perfect’ self, holding the mess tightly within its compounds. It became debilitating and depressing. In that swimming race, if I had my time over (which I’m very happy not to!) I hope I would go in accepting that like everyone else, I’m imperfect. I’d prepare well, I’d try my hardest, and I would accept that I will inevitably make mistakes along the way.
So, fellow perfectionist, do you need to:
Prioritise the process over just the product?
Embrace imperfection and learn from what it teaches us?
Be OK with your gap and show yourself kindness & self-acceptance?
Of course, a lot of this isn’t easy right, it takes courage and vulnerability in front of people you trust. But with this courage, I think we can all give each other a little more slack in life. We would then get to let go of all that strain, stress and anxiety, enjoy life as it is, and live more freely alongside fellow imperfectionists.
Images courtesy of newhappco.