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When Perfection Isn't Enough.

Writer's picture: Danielle Danielle


I don't know about you, but I have a constant need to be perfect. I have to be perfect in everything whether it be work, school, or my physical appearance. Ever since I was a little girl, I was scared to make a mistake and have someone notice. If I ended up getting "exposed", I would have that little voice inside my head saying "when will I be good enough"?


According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, perfectionism is the doctrine that perfection of moral character constitutes a person's highest good. It is often seen as a positive trait rather than negative. However, striving for perfection can lead to very toxic behavior.


Psychology Today lists depression, anxiety, obsessive compulsive disorders, eating disorders, and suicidal impulses as mental health effects of perfectionism. To no surprise, there is an increase in perfectionism among young people.


I think some of my own anxiety and depression are intertwined with my issues of trying to be perfect all the time. When I get criticized for something, I get extremely defensive and take it very personally. I fall into what I call the "snowball effect". For example, my fiancé, Cody, made a reference the other day, in a joking manner, that we don't eat super healthy sometimes. I snapped at him. I said a few of the following things, "what do you mean by that? YES WE DO!" "I workout 5 times a week and do intermittent fasting, I always try to eat healthy". I ended up slamming the door, annoyed, on my way to gym class. He had the audacity to say that to ME? Because I'm perfect, right? No, I'm not. I cooled off when I got into the car because I had to remind myself to not take what he said personally. This will be a focus of another post, but I have extreme body issues. When Cody said those things to me, in my mind, he was saying "you're fat","you're unhealthy","you're not good enough","you won't look good enough for our wedding", etc. Was he really saying those things to me? No, but I went directly to those thoughts in my head. I need to be perfect.


Honestly, I'm tired of trying to reach these unrealistic expectations that I make for myself, it's not healthy. I know it's not, and I'm trying to work on it. It's not easy, but I'm trying to break that pattern little by little each day. I think calming myself in the car was a good example of that. The old Danielle would have obsessed over it, been anxious/depressed and thought about it the next day, and then may be gotten into an argument with Cody again about it. I'm learning that a lot of habits have to do with cycles and our own thinking patterns, and it's up to us to change our response to it.


I'm going to end this post with a few ways on how to transform perfectionism, which are referenced from Brene Browns book, "The Gifts of Imperfection".


Let's change..

- "What will they think" to "how can I improve?"

- People pleasing to self-acceptance

- Self-criticism to self-kindness

- Emotional illiteracy to emotional literacy

- Isolating yourself to connecting and realizing the common humanity, and over-identifying with our thoughts towards being more aware and mindful of them.











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