When you are terrified of making a mistake – thats when perfectionism is knocking on your door. You ever wonder, what to do about and how to change your way of thinking? Grab yourself a tea, a coffee or whatever you want to drink and read all about it.
On being perfect
I am guilty of being a perfectionist! I want all or nothing. What I mean by that is: I either want my whole flat clean or I accept the mess I am living in. This example is not really harmful (beside the fact that my flat is messy af for days). But if you apply this mindset onto relationships, it can become quickly damaging. Or food, either eating healthy all the time or never. Lets not talk about the guilt when I plan to have a healthy eating day and then I am eating something, what I consider as, unhealthy. This is purely black- or white thinking (later more on that).
I don‘t know when it did happen, when I became so obsessed with being perfect and afraid of failure. I also got really high expectations of myself, slowly dying when I am not reaching them.
Even as I write this – I always ask myself „is this what I write good?“ More likely is it good enough? I pressure myself so often, like girl just have fun doing what you do. Just enjoy the experience, make faults, get better. Embrace your imperfections.
What is perfectionism?
Science say perfectionism is a personality trait „that makes life an endless report card on accomplishments or looks“. It is driven by internal pressures like harsh judgement. Someone who is a perfectionist sets unrealistically high expectations for themselves and other. They quick find mistakes or fault in others. Also they tend to procrastinate out of their fear of failure. Another thing: they look to specific people in their life for validation. So Science got me pretty right and accurate.
The manifestation of perfectionism
There are three different types of manifestation when speaking of perfectionism: self-oriented, other-oriented, socially-prescribed. Someone who has a self-oriented perfectionism is – as the name says – fully focused on themselves. There is an unrealistic desire to be perfect on oneself. Whereas the other-oriented perfectionism is all about imposing unrealistic standard of perfection on others. Socially-prescribed perfectionism means to perceive unrealistic expectations of perfection from others.
How to overcome perfectionism
The first step to overcoming is to be conscious about it. Simply acknowledge perfectionism.
Here are different examples of perfectionist thinking: Black- or White thinking, Catastrophic thinking, Probability overestimation or Should statements.
What now?
Then what now? Good you know that you are a perfectionist, now lets change your mindset. Not to say that it is easy. Everytime you have self-critical thoughts replace them with helpful or more realistic statements. Some examples of positive realistic statements are:
– It‘s okay if some people don‘t like me. No one is liked by everyone.
– I am doing my best. And this is enough.
– Making a mistake does not mean I‘m stupid or a failure.
Imperfectly okay
Look at the bigger picture: ask yourself, in the end, does it even matter? What is the worst that could happen? Will this matter tomorrow, in a week, in a year?
Practice being imperfect: upload an imperfect picture on instagram, send a message with mistakes in it, try a new restaurant (when you can again – not me crying right now cause where I live everything is closed) without searching how good it is.
Or in my case: leave a visible area in the house a little messy. And finally upload that first blog post, that you are so afraid to upload cause you want it to be perfect.
Do you have anything on your mind? Share your thoughts! Please comment down below!
Read more about it
Most of the information I got are from: https://www.anxietycanada.com/articles/how-to-overcome-perfectionism/
Loveyourself 