I am a recovering perfectionist. I actually erased this entire blog post twice before finally starting over and (sort of) liking what I wrote. Since it is a new blog, I’ve got to give myself a break. It takes time to find your groove when you start something like this.
What I want to know is how perfectionists like me can be so imperfect? I’m turning 50 this year soooooo…. shouldn’t I be close by now?
Nah. I don’t actually strive to be perfect any more than an academic strives to know every single fact in the world. My goal is to do my very best. The problem is that my best is a moving target; so I never know when to stop nitpicking at my work. With my best always in question, I can see how this would make me a perfectionist.
Even though I know I’m not perfect, it doesn’t mean that something I produce can’t be. A blog post can have perfect spelling; it can be fact-checked; and it can be a perfect length to keep the Google bots happy. All this takes time to do and not everyone is willing to make the effort.
I learned this years ago when I was in a secretarial program and I proofread one of my classmates’ letters. She wanted me to quickly check it over and when I found about sixteen mistakes, she just said “ach, it’s good enough”, dropped it on the teacher’s desk and left. Of course I was the last one to leave because I wanted to get it right, and I had the time to do so. Why not? It was a private business school where I paid an embarrassing amount of tuition to attend, so prudently working away was reasonable. I mean, why get up and go to that class every day (in my mid-twenties no less) and then knowingly hand in “good enough” with sixteen mistakes. It doesn’t make any sense!
Ok sure, I’m a little intense. But check out the definition of imperfect in Merriam-Webster:
Imperfect: Defective
Short and not so sweet. The word “Defective” is clickable –what does it say? It has its own definition page where the first example talks about replacing a defective light bulb. OK, so now imperfect things need replacing. Good to know.
If I sound cynical it’s because I checked thesaurus.com’s synonyms for imperfect. I found a few words I can live with, like flawed, limited, unfinished. But most of the words were very disheartening. Here is a list of the worst ones: deficient, dud, junk, garbage, damaged, disfigured, sick, bad, broken, low-quality, and second-class. They’re only individual words devoid of context and surely useful in many situations where things are being described instead of people. But I still wonder how many people ARE THIS HARD ON THEMSELVES.
As Perfect as a Unicorn
I’ve known a few people in my lifetime who would associate those adjectives with imperfection as it pertains to a person – mainly themselves. I’m not a professional so I do not claim to know the ins and outs of that level of perfectionism but I can say it seems hellish. There is a confident-looking mask on the outside and (what I imagine is) sheer terror on the inside – because eventually, the emotions come out in the form of panic, mistreatment of others, and/or quitting.
It’s not to say that people who think this way are necessarily hateful or unscrupulous. I would describe them as confused, biased, driven, and stubborn. It’s also possible that they’ve been under so much pressure and anxiety all their lives that they distort what healthy living actually looks like. Maybe their parents have rescued them from every small struggle they had as a kid that they can’t understand why they are so “defective” in their adulthood, or why others are. So in all likelihood, they are probably just projecting – as they, themselves are their own worst critics.
I once met a girl who had so much anxiety over the thought of failing that she only tried the things she knew she would be good at. And she WAS good at a lot of things the first time she tried them. When she wasn’t, she quit immediately. This was her normal. She never built any self-esteem by starting something from scratch, practicing and getting better at it. She never earned her metaphorical badges. She just lucked out with a gifted mind and some innate talents. But at the same time, I felt sorry for her.
Struggling Like a Boss
I had two separate conversations regarding struggling recently from two completely different perspectives. One person told me that when he is working throughout the day, he constantly runs into issues and doesn’t think anything of them. It’s part of his process where he tries and fails and tries and fails until he finds the answer. He was proud of how these struggles don’t even phase him –they’re part of his normal day. Then I spoke with another person who was trying a word puzzle and she told me that if she doesn’t get the answer within a minute or two, she quits. Too hard.
These were two highly educated people and although one was talking about his job and the other was only referring to a dumb puzzle, the general attitudes were so strikingly contrasting, especially considering these two people were mother and son.
We need to be tolerant of errors, flaws, and the sudden deviation from the perfect plan. While I’m at it, there is no perfect plan – just a long hard road of trying, making mistakes and failing, and trying again. Anybody who tells you that they got there seamlessly is either lying or they just consider struggling as a healthy part of the process.
The Art of Failing
Failing at a Major Goal
I can think of six general reasons for failing at something that are not at all indicative of anyone being “defective”:
- Realizing you wanted the wrong thing because you didn’t know yourself yet and learned while on the journey (eg. changing college programs, job experience pointed you in a different direction),
- Realizing when you got to the end that you’re not even the same person as when you started, therefore gave it up entirely because it’s just not you anymore,
- Realizing you were going about it the wrong way and amending your approach (eg. the order you did things in was not quite right, or you made some wrong choice along the way and need to back up and choose the alternative),
- Running out of resources to complete it and settling for what you can achieve (eg. no more money, no more support system),
- Running out of steam (eg. after years of trying, got tired and for sanity’s sake, cut losses) I don’t want to say quit because if you gave it your all and it wasn’t meant to be, then there is not much more you can do,
- Life happened and had to quit, for now or forever. (eg. Covid restrictions, got pregnant, death in the family, health reasons)
Perfectionists (and society) still turn every anti-climax into a sky-is-falling scenario, resulting in unnecessary guilt and a hesitation to try new things. But failing doesn’t always mean you have to keep going or start over. You do not have to be a martyr just because you started something and society tells you that you must follow through! In some situations, it is ok to just say to yourself “self, I gave it a really good shot, it didn’t work out, and now I’m square with the Universe”.
Failing at Minor Everyday Things
Then there are your everyday struggles which don’t seem to have much meat to them, but I know I feel like a loser when I experience too many at a time:
- Missing the bus,
- Losing your house key,
- Taking a long time to make a simple decision,
- Burning dinner and setting off the smoke alarm,
- Gaining a few pounds,
- Buying the wrong sized pants after gaining a few pounds.
Sometimes my whole day is like a comedy of errors and it would actually be funny if it wasn’t so anger-inducing. What I have to remember is that I am the star in my own life and therefore the only witness to every one of my little failures. So logically, any person that I think is nearly perfect is experiencing their own mishaps all day and hoping no one else is noticing.
The World Around You is Imperfect and Always Will Be
These are the things that are out of your control and mildly infuriating. I’m not talking about famine and wars, just everyday privileged life stuff. Even the most tolerant people will react to some of these, often in the form of smalltalk or the ability to jump in during social gatherings:
- Technical problems with your computer or phone,
- The hockey game got canceled,
- The price of gas went up again,
- You are forced to work on your scheduled day off,
- Covid this and Covid that,
- Your neighbour wakes you up every morning at 6AM hacking up a lung while smoking directly under his precariously flimsy deck (hmm, that one was oddly specific)
If the world around us was always perfect and right, then I think we perfectionists would be even harder on ourselves. If you follow my logic, you’ll see that acceptance of ourselves starts with the realization that perfection, in general, has never been a thing. So you see, that toilet paper shortage was actually a good thing!
Moving Forward as I Pass Middle Age
Personally, I have to remind myself on a regular basis that it’s 100% acceptable to be an unexceptional and average person. I don’t hurt anybody, and I don’t pretend I’m something I’m not. Being authentic is important to me and that’s the one thing at which I excel.
All the new stuff I’m trying right now may or may not work out. But I will put my best foot forward and go from there. I will be accepting of my off-days and make sure to accept other people’s as well.
Most of all, I will remember that others’ differing perspectives are not an indication of a problem that needs fixing – I don’t need fixing!
Neither did my classmate with the sixteen errors.
Live authentically every day, stay real!
