As is the case with most addictions, my addiction has not served me well.
I am a recovering perfectionist. I am in no way making light of others that struggle with other addictions that have destroyed their lives. That’s something I would never do, but when I read in a Brene Brown book that she is a recovering perfectionist, I realized I am too and I joined the “club”.
Being perfect seems like the perfect (pun intended) thing to do. We are all born with drive, but we don’t all struggle with the will to be perfect.
Perfectionism starts out very innocently. As a child you want to please mommy and daddy. In school you want to make good grades and make your teacher, mom and dad proud of you. Maybe you even want to make your siblings jealous that you are making perfect grades.
Perfectionist usually dress well, keep their room neat, their cars clean and are tenacious when sticking to a schedule.
Not so bad, right?
Well, here’s the thing. As perfectionists grow up, we become determined to be the perfect person and as far as we know the perfect person helps everyone in need, heads up every committee that needs a leader, volunteer at our children’s school to make our children happy and our husbands proud. Dinner is almost always on time and delicious. Our children’s school clothes are cleaned, ironed and sorted before Monday along with our husband’s shirts and well, our clothes, we get to that when we can.
A manageable life? Absolutely not!! Although we can accomplish amazing things something will suffer. Listen to this again, something or SOMEONE will suffer. There is a high cost to pay when being a perfectionist. It may be physical breakdown first followed by mental and emotional decline. Your health will pay the price. I can almost promise you that and I speak from personal experience.
As with any addiction, perfectionism will destroy your life. It is built on fear of not being enough to everyone while trying to also impress yourself. We like our own pats on the back. Perfectionism will slow you down and break you down. It will cause you not to be successful because your perfection keeps you from putting your creativity out there!
I hope you got that part!
Instead of perfectionism propelling you to move forward it will actually cause you to pull back and hold on to your creativity. Your thinking is that you cannot “put it out there” until it is perfect. Those are lies that your perfectionism is telling you.
Conquering perfectionism takes huge amounts of courage. HUGE! I know… been there down that. I don’t like exposing my writing because someone (a very judgmental someone) might see my weaknesses through my words.
The recovering perfectionist in me can now say “Who cares? They either like it or they don’t. I’m not writing for someone’s approval. I’m writing to speak from the heart and if someone doesn’t like it they can move on.”
Now that is a healthy recovering perfectionist if I do say so myself.
“Have the courage to be imperfect, vulnerable and creative.” Brene Brown
I hope you’ll consider it!
#smallsteps
Me too! 🙂