Releasing Perfectionism: Learning How to Let Go
This is a guest blog post by dietetic intern Autumn Rauchwerk, Registered Yoga Teacher, soon-to-be Registered Dietitian, and advocate of self-compassion and acceptance. Connect with Autumn through her website or her instagram.
For my 28th birthday, one of my dearest friends gave me the below poster by Giselle Buchanan.
I wasn’t sure how I felt about it - the font was crooked, the letters all different sizes, the colors didn’t go with my room’s aesthetic, and I wanted to show up with offerings that were more than makeshift.
So I bought a frame and hung it on the wall in my bedroom. Despite my hesitation, I knew I needed to remember this mantra every day that I questioned how I could accept myself when day after day I put out imperfect work. Accepting and learning to love this poster, in all of its imperfect glory, was a start.
I had started to notice that perfectionism was making me anxious, physically uncomfortable, often resentful, and frequently lonely. I felt the need to be constantly “doing,” constantly accomplishing, in order to feel worthy. If I couldn’t meet mine and everyone else’s highest standard, then I MUST be a failure. And I was constantly comparing myself to other people - if other people made mistakes, it was because they were incompetent or weren’t trying hard enough. If they were achieving more than me, it was because I wasn’t really applying myself, or maybe I was totally incapable. It was impossible to win - I could always find someone to judge or I would sit in judgment of myself, or often both.
Perfectionism is both judgment turned into ourselves and judgment turned out towards the world. And because we simply cannot be perfect, obsessing over trying to be will burn us out, disconnect us from others, and make it really challenging to form healthy relationships.
Many folks who have struggled with mental health challenges - such as anxiety, depression, and eating disorders, have also struggled with perfectionism. It can make healing much more challenging, can make us buy into all or nothing / black and white thinking, believing that our worth depends upon us being good at everything, having unwavering willpower, or having the “ideal” body. There is this idea that we are either perfect or failures, that having messy lives in some ways makes us a mess. This idea, ironically, feeds mental health conditions that actually do make our lives more complicated, when the reality is that everyone’s life is messy in different ways. We all have our own challenges, and each of our experiences and life stories are unique. Comparing ourselves to other people or to some ideal standard only leaves us feeling frustrated.
It’s easy to latch on to all of the ways in which we aren’t “enough” and believe that is what will motivate us to work harder, to be better. We believe inadequacy is motivating. That is very much how the weight loss industry profits so effectively - harnessing people’s insecurities, feelings of inadequacy, and convincing them they will be worthy when and only when they change their bodies. The problem is, this negative motivation model does not work. People are more likely to make healthier, better decisions for the long-run if they feel good about themselves already.
I think the reason so many of us chase perfectionism is because we associate it with a feeling of belonging, a feeling of inner peace, of profound satisfaction. When we become perfect, we believe we will be happy. But, as most of us realize, that isn’t the case. The “perfect” feeling never stays, or perhaps never even comes. The high of success never lasts because we inevitably find flaws and set a new bar we must climb to. The perfectionist ideal isn’t attainable. It never was.
Paradoxically (all of the deepest truths tend to be paradoxes), the only way we can find that “perfect” feeling is to accept what we often define as “imperfection.” Toni Morrison describes the inner state of perfection in her novel Tar Baby. That inner state is not contingent upon achieving external perfection - in fact, it’s contingent upon accepting all of the world’s imperfections.
At some point in life the world's beauty becomes enough. You don't need to photograph, paint or even remember it. It is enough...When that happens — that letting go — you let go because you can...A dead hydrangea is as intricate and lovely as one in bloom. Bleak sky is as seductive as sunshine, miniature orange trees without blossom or fruit are not defective; they are that.
Shifting our way of functioning can be difficult, especially because many of us were conditioned to be perfectionistic during childhood. Our parents were afraid of failure themselves and valued success and results over effort and the ability to accept failure. This epitomizes the principles of growth mindset versus fixed mindset, concepts that Dr. Carol Dweck coined from her research some 30 years ago.
Emphasizing grades, results and fear of failure (cough! perfectionism!) results in a fixed mindset, or the idea that we are a certain way and cannot change. Emphasizing effort, passion, and enjoyment of the process, with the ability to appreciate failure for its lessons and the potential for future development results in a growth mindset, or the idea that we can constantly improve and learn from our experiences. Approaching things with a growth mindset has been linked to increased ability to take risks, to strive for bigger goals as well as increased motivation and brain development, lower rates of stress, anxiety, and depression, and improved relationships and performance.
The other night, I saw a beautiful example of growth mindset play out while watching a live stream comedy special. The purpose of the special was so that the comedian could try out dozens of new jokes in front of 500 people to see which ones were funny. And guess what? Most of them weren’t. This guy - a successful, professional comedian, stood there and 75% of what he said didn’t even make us crack a smile.
I sat in awe of his willingness to flop and then keep going. It was a rare chance to see the humanity of someone who was really successful - he needed to work at his craft, really work, in order to excel. He needed to believe in himself and want it badly enough to keep putting himself out there. He needed to be okay with not being funny a lot of the time. Perfectionism did not serve his success; rather, believing in his own unconditional worth and potential served both his success and his well-being.
The question is, how do we start making these shifts? Can we be easier on ourselves when things don’t go well? What can we do to combat perfectionism? The tools are similar to coping with anxiety. In Olivia Remes’ TED talk, she said:
Anything worth doing is worth doing badly the first time. So, do things badly. Improvement will come with time. This counteracts indecision, leads to quicker decisions and action. Rather than not doing something because of fear or internalized shame, just doing it, exposure therapy in a way, will help us learn to release fear of failure and internalized shame.
Forgive ourselves for the mistakes we think we made.
Have a purpose and meaning in life beyond ourselves. Knowing that we are needed, that someone else benefits from our work and love improves our mental health.
I am going to add a mindfulness practice to that list - once we develop a practice where we can simply pay attention to our thoughts, emotions, and reactions, we can start to watch them unravel and dissolve. Perhaps this seems impossible. Meditation or other mindfulness practices felt impossible for most of us who now regularly practice them - like that comedian, a lot of the time it’s not glamorous or awe-inspiring. But, in time, committing to a practice unfolds some beautiful truths. If you would like to read more on this, my posts on yoga and meditation will provide a bit more insight on mindfulness experiences and how they relate to perfectionism.
Sources:
Costin, C., & Grabb, G. S. (2017). 8 keys to recovery from an eating disorder workbook. New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Company.
Curran, T. (2018, November). Our dangerous obsession with perfectionism is getting worse. Retrieved November 02, 2020, from https://www.ted.com/talks/thomas_curran_our_dangerous_obsession_with_perfectionism_is_getting_worse?language=en
Diehl, E. (2014, February 11). Is Perfectionism Growth-Minded? Retrieved November 02, 2020, from https://blog.mindsetworks.com/entry/is-perfectionism-growth-minded
Haversat, C. (2015, November). Perfectionism holds us back. Here's why. Retrieved November 02, 2020, from https://www.ted.com/talks/charly_haversat_perfectionism_holds_us_back_here_s_why
Remes, O. (2017, March). How to cope with anxiety. Retrieved November 02, 2020, from https://www.ted.com/talks/olivia_remes_how_to_cope_with_anxiety?language=en