When I say that I used to be a perfectionist, I’m not talking about which way to put the Charmin on the toilet paper holder. I’m talking…how to cut an onion. And how to fold a towel. We were raised to believe that there was a correct way to do everything. As well as a place for everything and everything in its place.
The advantages of perfectionism were so often hailed, that it never occurred to me that there was a downside. Many downsides, actually. Overwhelm. Fear. Black and white thinking. Paralysis. Even depression.
I mean, if you weren’t scrubbing your bathtub with Comet every morning after your bath, like Grandma Peitzmeier did, you were failing.
Perfectionism makes it easy to fail.
It also makes it easy to maintain the status quo. To not move forward. To not take chances.
There’s a lot of re-arranging deck chairs on the Titanic with perfectionists. Because we know how to re-arrange chairs. So that’s what we do.
Perfectionists do all of the small things that need to be done before attempting the big thing. Or that’s what we tell ourselves. We never actually get to the big thing, because the small things take up all of our time. I make my bed and clean that sink every day, because I know I can do it well, perfectly even, so I won’t beat myself up for not doing something well. In fact I can take pride in doing that well.
When it comes to accomplishing big, bold things, perfectionists aren’t even likely to try. Because the unspoken rules take over. What happens if we don’t do it perfectly? If we can’t do it? Better stick to what we know. And so we play small.
I got three Bs in 5 years of study as an undergrad, and I considered myself a failure. How many employers have asked for a transcript? Exactly none of them. No one cares about your GPA. Just that you can do the work.
B level work is enough. Moving laundry from the dryer to my bed doesn’t mean the laundry is done, but that it’s in progress. I’ve started it.
I launched this podcast February 6th, but what most of you don’t know is that I didn’t plan to launch the first episode until April. Because, as it turns out,…perfectionism. Here’s how it went down.
My friend Kate started a new book club and asked if I wanted to join. I did! It was at our first meeting that I realized, as I introduced myself as a recovering perfectionist to the other book club members, that the only reason I was launching my podcast in April was so that I could “get it right.”
One of the characters of that first month’s book, Covenant of Water–highly recommend, the “marriage guy,” a marriage broker of sorts, says that the first thing you do when you’re brokering a marriage between two families is to set a date. Everything else falls into place after that. Ha!
Sidebar: when I include a teaser at the end of an episode, that’s me setting another date.
Then I ask myself one or more of these questions:
- “What would I do if it were easy?”
- “What would someone smarter than me do?”
- “If it weren’t hard, what would it look like?”
- “What would I tell a friend?”
Small steps are enough.
Confirmation bias rarely serves perfectionists well, because we use the past to prove what we can’t do in the future. What if we reminded ourselves of our successes instead of our failures?
One more thing. Hang out with people who embrace imperfection. A couple of months ago I made the soupiest berry pie with the most wretched crust you’ve ever seen and took it to Kate’s house–yes, book club Kate–for what we call a pie-scapade, even though I knew it the pie was a disaster. Also, let the record reflect, Kate makes the BEST pies you’ve ever eaten in your life. So if comparison is your shame game, forget about it! But I had a feeling that I could practice being horribly imperfect with Kate. And I wasn’t wrong. We laughed as she scooped the soupy filling onto some ice cream she had in her freezer.
What does being a recovering perfectionist look like? I remind myself that it doesn’t matter what I did yesterday. It doesn’t matter what I did ten minutes ago.
My future isn’t written yet. It’s not decided by my past. It’s decided by what I do today. Right now. Small steps count.
By the time you hear this I’ll be in Virginia visiting my best friend for a couple of weeks. So My Act Four is taking a few weeks off. Be well. I’ll see you in July.
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