The Perfectionist is your controlling, fault finding, never satisfied part of you. She is constantly judging you and others, telling you, you are not good enough and will never be good enough. She tells you that you will fail again, as you’ve failed in the past in her eyes. She tells you that you will never be thin enough, good enough or attractive enough. If you can’t be perfect, she won’t even try and will procrastinate instead. Therefore, she will remain unchanged and staying stuck. She too is trying to protect you by getting in first with the negative criticism. Out of balance, the perfectionist is unrelenting, judging and extremely critical, and you will never meet her unrealistic expectations.
What are your thoughts?
This is really interesting.
I agree with most of it…but it is important to know that perfectionism is a choice and it has no control over your actions unless you allow it.
Perfectionism is a fancy way of saying I am scared I will fail, so instead of taking action I am going to fail on the spot by doing nothing.
I like this definition because it reminds me that choosing to allow perfectionism to stop me from having a go is cowardly. So many of us were raised to see perfectionism as a virtue, to only turn in perfect work and never show weakness…which means we always did what was in our comfort zone. This keeps our lives safe, average and unexceptional.
You can be scared and take action.
You can fear failure and still have a go.
If you do nothing you will live with regret.
If you take action and fail you will learn something.
But what about the possibility if success?
You don’t have to feel confident to take action, in fact if you are aiming to do something you have never done before, you cant ever feel confident…the idea that we need to feel confident before taking action robs us of our dreams.
The solution is not to find confidence or to ‘slay your self-doubt’ but rather to expect to feel doubt and worry and to have the courage to take action – courage is fear walking.
Just take a step, and another, and don’t look back. If you fall over, ask why, learn, get back up and go again.
You have got this my friend. We can feel scared and have a go, in fact I believe that is the key to creating a fulfilled life you are proud of. xx L