The Perfectionism Plague

If you have ever felt like:

• you are only successful if you perform better than those around you
• you have no value to others unless you are the best at something
• anything besides being the best is failure
• those around you are good at everything they do and you are simply mediocre
• you are worthless because you will never be good enough

then you’re probably like the thousands of others with perfectionism.

It’s no wonder we feel this way when we’ve been taught our whole lives that we must be the best in our high school to get into the college we want, the most talented student on campus to get into the major we want, the most outstanding student in the nation to get the internship we want, and then the most capable person on the continent to get the job we want. Maybe you have fallen into this trap, but nothing could be further from the truth. After all, you probably weren’t the top-rated student in your high school, but look at you now. Clearly there’s a whole board of people out there who thought you were valuable enough to attend their institution.

Photo from flickr.com by Kashirin Nickolai

Who is perfect anyway? I’m sure you could easily list off five people that seem perfect, but how much do you really know about them? I’ve heard it said that the most perfect people we know are the ones we don’t know very well, and that’s probably the case for those you just mentioned. At the same time, I’m sure you could list off the flaws of your five closest friends, but they are still some of the people you value the most regardless of their imperfection.

As we progress in life, we will always find that there are people that are smarter, more talented, or better looking than us, but that shouldn’t be any reason to stop trying to reach our own goals. One of my favorite quotes by Sean Covey says, “We’re all on different development timetables. Socially, mentally, and physically. Since we all bake differently, we shouldn’t keep opening the oven door  to see how well our cake is rising compared to our neighbor’s, or our own cake won’t rise at all.”

So how does one fight the perfectionism paradigm? Here is a list of strategies that may help:

• Accept that fact that as humans, nobody will ever reach perfection, but that doesn’t mean we should give up. We should always be striving to be better individuals.
• Let yourself enjoy your successes. Make a list of every little thing you are good at, from remembering to floss frequently to being a friend to those who seem left out. Review it often and keep adding new abilities you find.
• Remember that your beauty does not depend on your physical beauty.
• Don’t let yourself think negative thoughts about yourself. It’s tough, but like training a dog, you may have to tell him to sit 100 times over before he finally gets it right.
• Let yourself be proud of your accomplishments. Confidence and self-righteousness are two different things.
• Don’t expose yourself to things that will only make you feel bad about yourself. Of course you’re going to feel inferior if you spend hours looking a photos of celebrities or Victoria’s Secret models, wishing you had the same bodies as them. Also, think of all the opportunities they likely had to sacrifice because of the time and money they spent making their bodies “perfect”.

To finish, remember that the only person keeping you from being your best self is you. You are worth more than you realize, so get out there and discover it!