What you need to know about perfectionism.

 I had an idea floating around in my head to do a blog post about perfectionism. I grabbed pen and paper to jot down the points I wanted to write about. My grand plan was to write, upload the post, and be on my merry way. Sounds easy right?

 Well, several hours later, I sat looking at my scrap book plastered with what seemed like a million possible blog titles and several bullet points with red lines running through them. It was as if they were screaming for me to just pick one-any one! I spent hours trying to get the right words, the right title, the right tone, the right…………your guess is as good as mine!

 That was a month ago, and the blog post still has not been posted-well until now. I finally got tired of trying to do things perfectly, because who has time for that? Yes, you guessed it; ‘no one’ has time for that. Bingo!

I feel like I am a perfect candidate to talk about perfectionism as I have always struggled with the ‘P’ word, and clearly I still do. If I were to give my personal definition of perfectionism, it’d be that it is insecurity and fear masked as excellence.  

Perfectionists are afraid to put themselves out there, to throw caution to the wind, and do what they are called to do, because they are insecure. Well, since I have nominated myself as the poster child for perfectionism, you might want to stick around to hear what I have to say. These are the things you need to know about perfectionism.

It leads to time wasting

There is no one who wastes time like a perfectionist. Trust me, I am the president of the time wasting committee because of my perfectionism. Time wasting is a direct result of trying to do everything perfectly. It is not that perfectionists deliberately waste their time; in their minds, they are spending their time, (albeit an entire day), trying to perfect something, which to them makes it justifiable.

The problem with taking a gazillion hours to create that something- a blog post, a YouTube video, a report at work, is that while you are trying to create the perfect thing, someone else is miles ahead of you. And that person has already written a blog post, posted a YouTube video, and handed in their report at work. In the meantime, the perfectionist, we’ll call her ‘perfect Patty’ has not completed a single task on her ‘to do list’.

It sabotages your goals

If you look at ‘perfect Patty’s’ scrap book or vision board, you’ll see a list of perfectly coordinated written goals, with dates assigned to each. That is all well and good, until it comes to the actual execution. Perfectionists are known for setting goals and never actually fulfilling them, or if they do fulfil them, they are behind schedule.

While ‘perfect Patty’ takes forever and a day to complete a task, time favours the next person, we’ll call this person, ‘imperfect Irene’. ‘Imperfect Irene’ does not care about being perfect because she knows that perfection is a myth. So while ‘perfect Patty’ is busy sabotaging her goals by procrastinating, ‘imperfect Irene’ is completing tasks in a timely manner, smashing her goals and living her best life!

It ultimately leads to unhappiness

Yikes! No one wants to be unhappy and no one sets out to be unhappy. But hey, life happens. Although unhappiness is caused by a plethora of things, I dare to say that perfectionism is one of those things. When you hold perfectionism dear to your heart, it does you no good. A ‘perfect Patty’ is never satisfied with her achievements or progress and this can have a negative impact on mental health, ranging from anxiety to depression. In trying to become perfect, you realise that you will never be perfect, which for a perfectionist, creates a whirlwind of debilitative emotions. 

So what if your first Podcast, published book or YouTube video isn’t perfect? I have news for you. They do not need to be perfect. All you need to do is create. Put yourself out there if you want to achieve your goals. Perfectionism is a lie that was fed to us; a belief that has been embedded into our psyche that needs to be unlearned. Let’s kick perfectionism to the curb and be more like ‘imperfect Irene’; messy, flawed, and committed to doing things imperfectly while achieving our goals and living our best lives.

Are you a ‘perfect Patty’ or an ‘imperfect Irene’? How has perfectionism played out in your life? Comment in the comment section and let’s talk about it. In my next blog post, I will be addressing how to overcome perfectionism.  Until we meet on these pages again, I implore you to throw all your limiting beliefs out the window and start living the life you were created to live.