"There came a time when the risk to remain tight in the bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.” – Anais Nin
Here’s a fact. Everyone is trying to make sense of their life in some way. We’re trying to make it feel right to us. Some do it by pursuing their goals, some with art, some with love, and some by giving to others. For as long as I can remember, I’ve been trying to make sense of my life by trying to be perfect. Well, up until some time ago, to be exact. But it was a profound force in my life. It took over the big picture and it showed in the small things. If I was perfect, I was fine, and if I wasn’t perfect, I was a failure. Yes, I was a blossoming, self-declared perfectionist.
If you have just an ounce of perfectionism in you, you’d understand when I say that there’s a whole spectrum of perfectionism. There’s one end of the spectrum, where the level of perfectionism is rather healthy, and all you desire is to reach your most ambitious goals. Then there’s the other end of the spectrum, where perfectionism has hindered you from functioning well as an individual. You won’t go out of the house because things are not controllable outside of the safety of your home. You can’t have a relationship because human beings do unpredictable things that make you feel uncomfortable. And the rest of us fit somewhere in between these two extremes.
I have traveled the spectrum a fair bit in my life. There was a time in my childhood when I would be frustrated and unable to sleep if I would get an 8.9 in a class test, while others could get a 9. There was a time when I had to write an essay for a literature competition, but I couldn’t write it simply because my handwriting was not perfect enough for me. It was not perfect enough because some letters were slightly larger than the others, and my b’s and d’s were not of the same height. Perfect handwriting, to my 12-year-old self, meant that the letters had to have the exact same size and height. I’d write a few words, be frustrated because they were not “perfect”, crumple the paper into a ball, throw it on the floor, and start over only to fail to make the perfect handwriting again. It became so bad that my mother had to draw lines between the actual lines on the paper with a pencil, so that I could make all my letters the same height. My young mind could not recognize that this was the beginning of my love affair with perfectionism. I simply thought I was a failure, because I believed that successful people could write with perfect handwriting.
I continued to have a complicated relationship with my perfectionism. There were days when I’d criticize myself so many times in my head, sometimes literally hundreds of times per day. My hair was not right. I was not pretty enough. Not articulate enough. Could have worked harder on my assignment. Could have been nicer to people. Could have been more focused in my prayers. The way I walked was not right. Perfect people walk gracefully and in one straight line. I did not. The things on my desk had to be arranged all facing north, with equal spacing between each other. Why did I say that stupid thing? Why couldn’t I be more patient with my baby sister? Why do I binge? I created highly unreasonable definitions of perfect, definitions I couldn’t fit into. In my eyes, I was far from perfect. And yet, I decided that being perfect was the only way I could be happy, the only way to live. The only respectable way to live.
And yet, in all aspects, I appeared as a normal teenager. I excelled in several things and was generally happy. I had friends and the typical ups and downs of a teenager. And yet, even in my happiest moments, there was always something that didn’t feel right. There was always something in the back of my head, telling me that I’m not perfect and thus undeserving of true happiness. As destructive as it was, I held on to my perfectionism. I was even proud of it for some time. I felt like perfectionists were the type of people who were ambitious, hard-working and unafraid to pursue their goals. We were the people who would succeed. And true, if you could control your perfectionism and use it to your advantage, it could motivate you to reach your goals. But I find that it’s immensely difficult to make sure that your perfectionism is large enough to motivate you, but not too large that it eats you. Finding balance, as those among us who are honest with themselves know, is one of the finer challenges in life. After years of being a proud yet tormented perfectionist, I finally realized that I had to deal with it, or it would sabotage my life.
And even then, it was not easy to unlearn my perfectionism. Oh boy, was it difficult. And even if you’re not a perfectionist, I believe you can relate to this experience. If we’re honest, each of us is struggling with something, a part of us that prevents us from being truly happy, and would continue to do so until we deal with it. It can be pessimism, laziness, procrastination, shyness, lack of confidence, lack of purpose, you name it. But here’s the thing. No matter how many times I failed to properly deal with my perfectionism, I never gave up on myself. I never let my perfectionism define who I am. Never once did I say, “This is just who I am and I can’t change it, so I should stop trying.” And I think that’s the first step of dealing with your issue: never let it define you. It’s not who you are, it’s just one side of your personality that you would like to change, to allow yourself to be truly happy.
And here’s where I think people are divided. There are people who argue that you can’t change the fundamentals of who you are, and there are people who argue that you can, and that in fact, you need to do so throughout your life in order to grow. I lean towards the second. If you’re a follower of the first school of thought, don’t sneer just yet. I think people probably can’t completely change their natural tendencies, but they can develop skills on how to deal with them. I still have perfectionism tendencies – I still demand a lot from myself, and sometimes I criticize myself too much. But I have learned how to respond to these tendencies. I have learned how to deal with them so that they don’t take control over my life. Whenever I feel my perfectionism urges coming up, I tell myself, “Perfectionist is bad, dedicated and motivated is good.” This motto reminds me that as long as I stay dedicated to what I’m doing and motivated, I’ve done my best, and that’s all I need to be. And not just that – it also reminds me that it’s okay to have perfectionism tendencies. It doesn’t mean I’m a perfectionist. What matters is how you respond to these tendencies. Do you succumb? Or do you keep a clear head and choose to do what’s best for you?
In my opinion, the argument that people can’t change is nonsense. Have you met a person who has never gone through a major personality change in their life? If you look back at your life, could you say that you haven’t changed at all, personality-wise? I find that people need to constantly change to survive. As we get older, our challenges become more difficult, and we need to grow in order to rise to these new challenges. And isn’t change the essence of growth? Growing up means you become something that was initially not you. I was a spoiled child, but because I was sent abroad to study at the age of 13, I had to be independent and take care of myself. Slowly I grew into a more independent person. Is that not change? And yet, if I decided that being independent was impossible for me, I believe I would not have become independent. What you believe becomes your self-fulfilling prophecy. It becomes your reality. So if you believe that you can’t change, you’re probably right. If you believe you can, you’re probably right too.
So that was the first lesson I learned the hard way: Never let your demons define you. Learn the skills to deal with them, and never give up. And if you forget why you bother to deal with your demons (we all forget from time to time), remember that it’s because you owe it to yourself to be truly happy. We all deserve to have peace of mind and happiness.
The second thing that I found helpful was to take it day by day. I once went to a Christian school, and although I’m not Christian, I still had to attend mass every Monday. I had to sit with the other students, listen to their singing and to the sermon. One of the regular songs was about taking your burden off your shoulders and putting it before God. That concept appealed to me tremendously. Dealing with your demons is difficult, but it gets easier if you break it down into days. Just like a tired athlete who needs rest, you too need time-off from all your worries. After a long day of fighting off my perfectionism tendencies, nothing feels better than to take a moment alone, close my eyes and say, “God, I tried hard today. And yet my problem is still there. Tonight I will take my problem off my back and lie it down in front of You. Please soothe my frustrations and let me have my rest. Tomorrow I will try again.” Doing that always makes me feel energized and calm.
But I found that self-conviction and persistence wasn’t enough – they had to be paired with self-understanding. If ever there is one powerful tool that can open many doors for you, I think self-understanding is it. Personally, I think self-understanding is being honest with yourself and learning about how you work. Why do I have perfectionism tendencies? I read that perfectionism is a tool we use to defend ourselves against inner vulnerabilities. Oh, how that resonates with me. That feels so true. What do I feel vulnerable about? What are my fears, my insecurities? What am I trying to achieve by trying to be perfect? Who am I trying to please? Does it really make me happy?
Going down that road can be uncomfortable and takes courage. Some truths about ourselves are just not pretty. We may find things we don’t like about ourselves. It’s tempting to not go into them and bury them instead. Oh yes, it will be tempting to follow your tendencies too, because they just feel so natural. When this happens, I find it helpful to remember why I’m doing all this: the pursuit of happiness. Peace of mind is not just some distant concept reserved for the most zen among us and Buddhist monks – it’s a necessity if we long for a happy life. And I don’t mean the kind of happiness that we derive from a great relationship, an achievement or an easy day spent hanging out with best friends. I mean the kind of happiness we have even when our love life or achievements are non-existent. I mean the kind of happiness we derive from strength and stability of mind, and from understanding and accepting ourselves. If anything helped me to deal with my perfectionism, I think learning about myself with genuine honesty was it. I read psychological explanations for the way I worked. I spent time pondering about why I work the way I work. It makes a world of difference when you’re honest with yourself. You see, people are highly skilled at fooling themselves. We believe what we want to believe. If we are prepared to look at ourselves just as we are, with full acceptance, we may find that suddenly things become clear to us.
They certainly became clear to me. Slowly, because sometimes things are revealed to us in pieces, little by little. There should be no surprise in that – I bet a lot of our parents are still dealing with their demons. There’s no quick-fix solution to this. It became clear to me that I wanted to be perfect because that’s where I derived my self-worth from. Growing up, the people around me have always been ambitious and successful. I was always encouraged to aim high, and praised when I did well. People have always expected me to do well. Everyone longs for acceptance, and I am no different. Performing and living up to other people’s expectations was my yardstick for success. Success equaled self-worth. All along, I was looking for the feeling of being worthy.
Unfortunately, self-understanding alone doesn't lead you to peace of mind. There's still the last piece of the puzzle, the trickiest one, which is self-acceptance. Why is it tricky? I think constructive self-acceptance, which is self-acceptance that will lead you to happiness, requires you to find a balance between loving who you are and not letting your demons define you. You should accept yourself, but you shouldn't hastily accept those characteristics that make
you less than happy as a fixed part of you. And here's another point where people are divided. Some people would argue that you should accept everything about who you are, the good and the bad. And I agree, I think you should. But not those characteristics that make you less than happy.
You, not other people. The purpose of accepting yourself is to be happy. Why should you accept those characteristics that actually do not make you happy?
Also, who is to say that these characteristics are you; an unalterable part of you? Remember my paragraph about change before. We should be careful in labeling ourselves, because labeling is a very powerful tool. We tend to believe the labels we give ourselves, and they will, eventually, become our reality. If we label ourselves as lacking in confidence, and we accept that, we will never be confident. Lack of confidence can cause many problems in life -- it may stop us from pursuing our dreams, prevent us from having meaningful relationships with others, and lead us to pessimism. Why should we allow ourselves to be this way?
Let me elaborate by using myself as an example. To constructively accept myself, I accept that I have perfectionism tendencies, but I refuse to let them take over my life. I refuse to call myself a perfectionist, because I don't need to stay as one. I can learn skills to deal with my perfectionism tendencies. I take the same approach to other characteristics that make myself unhappy. As for those characteristics that are not necessarily positive but that don't make me unhappy, I accept them fully. I accept that I can be careless, that I have no sense of direction, that I can be too open, that I can withdraw myself from others in certain situations. I don't fret over my hair on a bad hair day.
The paradox is this: Once I accepted myself, it became easier to deal with my perfectionism. I came to the understanding that that self-worth is not derived from success or pleasing others. Everyone goes through failures. Does it diminish your self-worth when you fail? No. I believe you derive your self-worth from living well and being yourself. If you do your best, practice kindness, pursue your purpose in life, allow room for mistake for yourself and others, and be yourself, I believe you can derive self-worth from that.
So I began to try to extract self-worth from these things. I took baby steps towards my lifelong goals. As part of living well, I began exploring the spiritual side of my life. I prayed more. I confided in God more. I laughed off my mistakes. I gave myself credit for the things I achieved. I made time to do things I really loved, like cooking, reading cookbooks and spending time with friends. I tried to be kind when I didn't feel like it. I didn't always succeed, but no worthy pursuit is supposed to be easy. Every night, I still take my worries off my shoulders, put them away, and get my mental rest.
Unexpectedly, my perfectionism tendencies also become less and less. It's like seeing the world through a new pair of glasses. Suddenly, I understand that life is meant to be imperfect. Life is a mess. Life is a succession of messy, unpredictable affairs. Accepting this gives me immense relief. I am no longer a victim of my own perfectionism. It no longer prohibits me from being happy, from loving myself, from embracing life's unpredictable events. But I am also under no illusion that peace of mind is a static concept. I don't believe that once you reach peace of mind, you will always have it. You need to maintain in by practicing the things that led you to peace of mind in the first place. It may be a lifelong journey, but I feel that this is a start.
