“Wow, that’s a big topic… hope you get it right.”
Says the man on the plane sitting to my right. He’s asking me what I’m working on at 6:30 in the morning while everyone else is snoring in their upright positions.
I’d informed him that I was writing an article on “perfectionism”. I think I saw him flinch before he gave me his sarcastic “words of wisdom” and shut his eyes.
Ironic. “I hope you get it right”. (Truth be told, I’d made the same joke the day before.)
“Perfectionism” is a funny thing. It brings up all sorts of stuff – conscious and not. Even writing about “perfectionism” is a funny experience. There are so many layers to it, and so many loops back to “don’t pass go”, that I’ve found it difficult to condense into anything readable because there’s just SO much to say on this topic. So much. (Heads up! This maybe a 3-parter by the time I’m done with it.)
Bottom line…
What is your relationship with “perfect”?
Really. Consider.
Your default maybe “Oh, I’m not perfect.” Or, “Oh, I am perfect.” Or, “Oh, there’s no such thing as perfect.”
Great.
But really. Think about it. Where do you expect perfect from yourself? And where do you expect it from others?
Where do you set ridiculously high, even unforgiving, standards for yourself? For others?
And what’s the impact? The cost? The payoff?
Stop. Consider something you’re “beating yourself up” for right now, or something you’re not “happy about”, or a place where you feel less than great. What’s the “picture” you’re measuring yourself against? What’s the “picture” you’re measuring “them/he/she/it” against?
Quietly lurking, in the most vulnerable of spots, when we’re not happy with something and especially when we’re indulging in what I call “self-beatings”, the sneaky little monster of perfection lives. And he is often subtle.
Got him? Look a bit more. Pull back the covers. Take a peek. Yep. He’s likely in there somewhere.
Perfectionism is often a blind spot. Unseen, it will drive us in our relationships – with ourselves and with others. Seen it will exhaust us, never getting it “quite right’. Either way you look at it, it’s a trap. And the only escape hatch is awareness, honesty, humility, and yes, just a bit of self-love and compassion.
I’ve noticed there are different forms of “perfectionism” – you get to design your own – for this post I want to talk about “expected” and “projected” perfectionism.
Expected Perfection: You expect perfection from people, especially your teachers/mentors/leaders, and anything below the bar of “perfection” (whatever that means anyway) is a disappointment to you, a reason to attack them, a reason to write them off, and maybe even a reason to make you feel better about yourself. Superiority is seductive to the expectant. Blame, and easy ride. While some of the expectant experience disappointment, and even hurt, others find delight in knocking people down a peg when they find they’re not perfect. Or even in using it as justification to not learn/follow/engage/show up/be accountable. (You know the type, it can be a bit nasty.) And if you’re on the receiving end of “expected perfection”, and you care a lot about “showing up” for people, and doing things “right”… feelings are bound to get hurt, shame is coming for you.
Projected Perfection: You feel that YOU have to be perfect, so you compromise your authenticity and inner peace to do things “right”, have things look good, make sure no one finds out you’re flawed. And you feel tremendous shame when they do. It’s a trap. It’s an exhausting, debilitating, creativity compromising, connection breaking, de-humanizing trap. You get careful, play it safe, play it quiet. And spend a ton of mental energy keeping your stuff “together”. You likely know this type too, you may even have had a “bit of this” somewhere in your life, or a lot, or not. Your ego loves this game, and gets seduced when others expect perfect from you. Most every human being I’ve met has/has had some version of this. It’s the version that is extra hard on yourself, an unhealthy dose of inner competition. (Bonus here! If you’re in this camp, you likely also walk around expecting perfection from those around you. Yep, double dose of crazy coming right up!)
Which “camp” do you fall into? Maybe a little bit of both?
I find most of us have little bits and pieces of both. Some have a ton. Some have it pretty mastered. Some use it as a bat against others, and an excuse to play it safe. Pick your poison.
My first “aha” with “expected perfectionism”, where I actually became consciously aware of how I held others and my relationship with perfectionism, was not until I was in college. Looking back, I can see where it drove a lot of my own self esteem and my esteem for others, but up until my epiphany in college, I actually had no idea.
I was a Junior working on my Kinesiology degree. I had my professor on a huge pedestal. Huge. Stopping in at classroom one day I came upon him working intently on one of our cadavers. When I asked him what he was doing, he said he was learning about the wrist. I don’t know if it was how he said it, or that he said it, but there was something about him saying it that just hit me wrong.
“What do you mean you’re learning? YOU’RE learning more? But I thought you knew it all?” I said partially in awe, partially in relief, and if honest, mostly in disappointment, as he continued to dissect the ligaments and tendons of the cadaver’s right arm.
“Nope, I am still learning this stuff, just like you.” He didn’t even look up.
Oh. (Insert frowny face. There is no Santa Claus. A pedestal crumbled.)
As silly as this seems now, I can remember the “heartbreak” I felt over this conversation. See, I’d thought my teacher had it “all figured out”. I thought that since he was teaching me, clearly he would be “perfect”. I thought I could just follow him, and expect 100% from him, and have him be my perfect model. He knew it all. I could “count on the map”. I’d thought wrong.
He was a human being. Just like me. Learning. Mastering his craft. Growing. Failing. Shining. Screwing up. Recovering and “climbing back on”. There was no perfect. There was no “done”.
And after I processed my grief (and judgment)…. And made peace with my teacher’s humanness… Once I “got” this…. (as much as you can get it at the ripe old age of 21), I was liberated.
My exhausting expectation for “perfection”, freed.
Until 10 years later, when it reared its head again, in an even more dramatic way, again, with another teacher. I wont’ go into the depths of the story, maybe in part 2 if this piece wants more, but what I can tell you is that due to my expected perfectionism of my teacher, not only did I not learn all I could from her, or contribute to her, I could not connect with her as a human being — until she’d passed away. It wasn’t until after she passed, that I realized how much time, energy, and connection I’d lost forgetting that she was just another perfectly imperfect human being, and thinking that I couldn’t possibly “contribute” to her when she was all the way up on that pedestal I’d placed her on. And trust me, she’d asked. She’d asked me to contribute to her, and in my own discomfort with “imperfection”, I couldn’t see how.
Death wakes us up.
One of her greatest gifts to me did not fully manifest until she passed away and I realized how much my own pressure for perfectionism, and thereby my expected perfectionism of others cost me. And that changed me. Gifts galore.
In the last month I’ve been criticized for not being perfect, and therefore not to be trusted as an “expert” in my field, to 3 weeks later being criticized for being too perfect, and therefore not to be trusted. I either integrate feedback really fast, or I’ve been dealing with expected perfectionism. (And a lot of projection.) If I bought either of these viewpoints, or let them “design me”, I’d be paralyzed.
But it’s easy to get suckered into.
And it’s easy to forget.
There is no such thing as perfect.
Perfect is a trick.
You are your own best judge.
Perfection is exhaustion in disguise. Your soul’s depleter. Your ego’s red herring.
It’s actually quite simple. So simple, we forget. (We had this wisdom as kids, at some point, we knew this.)
We have to do our best. Show up. Serve. Be quirky. Bring all of it. Screw up. Shine. Be big – be huge – be bright. Fall down. Be real. Squeal in delight. Cry like a baby. And do it all over again.
And we have to give the people in our lives the space to do the same.
The kinder you are to you – the kinder you can be to others.
The more space you give yourself for authenticity and realness, the more you can give others.
The less you judge you, the more spacious you can be for others.
And on and on and on. I’ve found it works the other way as well – though not as powerful. We’re human projecting machines. Our outer worlds are simply a reflection of what’s going on internally. Clean that up, and the world – and the way we are with people – shifts.
Be nice. To yourself too. Your leadership is counting on it.