Hello, my name is Yoli, and I’m a perfectionist.
Being a perfectionist is often the bane of my life. It causes so much stress to want to make things perfect, and so much stress when it doesn’t happen.
As a student in middle and high school, I placed very high expectations on myself. My grades were good enough, that one time in high school, when I was out for a week sick as sick dog, my teachers said I didn’t have to take the midterm exam because (and I quote): “You would have passed it anyway.”
These high expectations carried on into college. I stressed over every test, exam, midterm, final, and over every assignment, paper, and project. My entire student career, I was so much of a perfectionist, that getting good grades was a norm.
But do you know what this really meant?
It meant that I couldn’t actually celebrate my achievements. I couldn’t be happy when I got an A, or even a B. I couldn’t appreciate the work I put into getting the “Pass”. I was never happy about it, because it was expected of myself. And you know what’s even stranger? Whenever I turned in an assignment or project, or finished the test, I always told myself I didn’t pass, I didn’t get a good enough grade. This started way back in middle school too. I didn’t want to feel disappointed if I failed to meet my expectation. So I never expected to get what I was inherently expecting.
Unfortunately, this carried over beyond schooling, and became a way of life, until it evolved into a rather toxic attitude. Because once I stopped having that ONE thing—grades—to work on expecting but not but yes, my world broadened to a “million” things I was giving myself high expectations of, in other words, everything else.
And it was toxic. I couldn’t celebrate people, things, or experiences. I couldn’t be happy about what I had, what I was blessed with, all because of these actually unrealistic expectation that I had of what it meant to be a good mom, wife, daughter, artist, writer, birder, all the things I should be enjoying; all the things I wanted to be but wasn’t allowing myself to achieve because of a twisted sense of perfectionism. No wonder I can barely remember the things that should have been engraved into my memory. No wonder “being grateful” wasn’t working—they say that’s the cure—since I knew it in my head but didn’t feel it in my heart. No wonder I couldn’t “choose myself” happy.
My unhappiness, my depression, all along, was stemming from unmet expectations. Big or small, long or short-term, realistic or not. They all piled up and up and up until it became an oppressive mountain, starting from middle school, all the way to now…
…“now”…well then… now what?
What can I do about this? How do I solve the problem, finally realized?
I have to manage my expectations.
What will turn what I thought was a flaw, being a perfectionist, into an asset?
Experience.
Experience together with perfectionism yields an amazing solution: Expertise. And expertise leads to a certain peace of mind in knowing and understanding what you’re doing, why, and how, and ultimately, this leads to joy. Not just happiness, but joy, and honest pride.
Instead of using perfectionism in a toxic way—having to be the best at something naturally instead of through study and hard work, having to compete to stand at the top—I need to realize I don’t have to be natural at something to be perfect at it. It’s okay to have to study and work at it until I understand what I need to do. I should be using perfectionism not against the world in a rat race I can never win, but against my inner fears of failing at what matters to me, by not giving up.
I need to be using my personality trait to grow, not tear myself down. So while I’m striving to do and be the best, I should also discern what needs to be perfect, and what doesn’t. Assignments and work should be as close to perfect if not completely. My hair on a windy day where I have a meeting to go to doesn’t need to be. It can be just okay.
And if my work isn’t done perfectly, then I fix the mistakes I can and I learn from it. And with experience my mistakes will become fewer and far between. And instead of agonizing over my mistakes and the less-than-perfection I’m expecting, I have to decide what needs to be perfect, and what doesn’t need to be. If it needed to be perfect, then I’m back to the thought that I just need to gain more experience. And if it doesn’t need to be perfect, then why am I agonizing?
Even my relationships don’t have to be perfect, because I’m gaining experience the longer I work at them and that helps me to not only enjoy them, but resolve the painful moments sooner—instead of dragging it out—because of the trust that experiences help to build.
And if, for whatever reason, I keep making the same mistake, no matter how many times I’ve gone through it, then I need to modify my expectation, I need to change what it is I’m doing, make a rearrangement. It could mean a job change, it could mean moving houses, it could mean new relationships (although in MY case, not a new marriage! Allow me to say really quick, that my husband has been a huge support in all of this), it could mean narrowing down then building back up, as in, taking smaller bites.
It took me a very, very long time to realize all this, to get to the roots, and it took even longer to understand what it meant, how to identify it when it comes up again, and what the solution is.
Now, I have to learn what it means for me to manage my expectations, what that looks like, like how to anticipate when it may not be fulfilled, and what my plan of action is when that happens, or like how to create more realistic ones, more achievable ones. Something.
My dissatisfaction with myself didn’t happen overnight. It was the product of years and years. Relearning how to be a perfectionist won’t happen overnight either.
But at least I now know, that being a perfectionist isn’t a flaw, it’s a strength.