Some of us always want to do things “right” there is no room for error. The moment we believe that we have not done something perfect or commit a mistake, there is a highly critical voice in our heads that would start ripping us apart for not getting it right. If you get late for a meeting or if the recipe doesn’t come out as you wanted it to be, or in a conversation you say out a word by mistake that you wanted to keep to only yourself, we tend to take all such mistakes to heart. I have been here and I know how stressful this can be.

In our ideal world, we would want to do every single thing right literally all of the time. But we don’t live in our ideal world and therefore we make mistakes. In fact, we make a lot of them and when we do, we might often find ourself with a knot in the stomach for hours afterwards, dwelling on “How could I do it?” overwhelming ourselves with guilt, embarrassment and shame. Sometimes these feelings become the only focus. This need to do everything perfectly may have helped us at some point in life that’s why we developed it in the first place and would have retained it for so long. But sometimes these high standards that we set for oneself can be unrealistic. I often have the habit of expecting myself to be perfect at everything at all times and to play all my roles perfectly in life. The controlling critical voice was all I could hear when I had committed a mistake or when I was not able to meet the expectation.

We cannot be perfect at all of the things all the time. It’s simply not possible. And by expecting ourselves to be this way, we might find ourself falling into the trap of self-criticism time and time again. Something I’ve learned over the years is that seeking validation from others to feel good about myself is not a fruitful approach. Validation from others will always be inconsistent and unreliable. Likewise, validation from myself is not necessarily a guarantee either. I am a human, who like everyone else is inconsistent. So, setting the expectation that I will please everyone, even myself daily is completely silly. Moreover this also leads to stress to constantly meet the high standards set.

Getting out of this need for perfectionism in everything one does, requires a much deep work of exploration and introspection. However, here are some small steps that I personally found to be helpful in my struggle with perfectionism. First and foremost, I accepted that I am fallible and I am human enough to do mistakes. I understood that there is immense value in finding someone to talk to about my mistake. Now I share and talk about this with my counsellor or my partner or my close friends and tell them exactly how I’m feeling (for example: shameful), and why (for example I forgot to put my phone on silent mode in a training). When I say it out loud, it quickly begins to feel better. Vocalizing my thoughts makes me realize that they may not be the end of the world after all. Next, I ask myself: “If a friend had made this mistake, would I be judging them so harshly and giving a verdict?” Chances are, the answer will be ‘No.’ If that’s the case; which is pretty much always is, I do my very best to use towards myself. This doesn’t mean I don’t continue to work on improving myself every single day. But now I do this from a place of self-love and not from a place of self-hate and it feels a heck of a lot better that way. 

I have made my self-care stronger and now when I don’t get something right, I am kind and gentle towards my mistakes focusing only on what I need to learn from this mistake and to be mindful enough to at least catch myself next time on the same path of perfectionism. This is a simple mindset shift that is now leading me towards so much more inner peace than I’ve ever had before. 

Sabita 28/12/2020

sabita@bilincc.com