I’ve been thinking a lot lately about perfection.
Perfection is a standard. A standard that we hold ourselves to in order to not feel the lack of worth that can come with its failure.
Perfection can be about anything. For some it’s our looks, others our behaviour, and for still others, our achievements. Or all of the above. Whatever we decide is our standard of perfection, ends up being the bar we work our asses off to reach.
The scariest part of perfection is that it is internally driven. That standard of perfection is what we believe we need to reach, or we fail.
And failure in this case is never as simple as understanding that if we don’t reach it, we can simply take that as a lesson learned and keep trying. Oh no, failures of self-imposed perfection have much shittier consequences than that.
Think about where those standards come from. What I have seen many times over is that they come from good and bad lessons you learned as a kid or young adult about right and wrong.
Wait. Isn’t that part of raising kids? Teaching them how they should and shouldn’t behave?
Sort of. But when those teachings get attached to your self worth, the importance of reaching the perfection standard becomes not only as important as hell, but guides everything you do as an adult.
Like doing things for the wrong reasons. Not challenging what we need to challenge. And taking all our human imperfections to heart. What’s left? We feel less than. Not enough. Not truly worthy of acceptance, of success, or even of love.
Over the years I have known countless women who are attached to perfectionist behaviour because somewhere down the line they got the message that they were not good enough without it. The message could have come from an influential teacher, a parent, a relative perhaps. Or even a person ahead of them in their family who is on a pedestal of sorts for exemplary actions or behaviours. Some acts are tough to follow.
As a woman, perfectionist standards hit every part of your life. Your job, your relationships, and how you influence the other people in your life. Even (and this is a biggie given how we naturally nurture those around us) what you think you need to do to be a “good” mother, wife, daughter or friend. Those self-imposed expectations don’t come out of the blue, they are constructed.
No matter where it came from, or the consciousness of the person sharing the message, or how it plays out for you, the end result lies with you. You are the person with the negative thoughts, the one who questions herself and how much she actually deserves to succeed, the one who is never absolutely positive she will ever measure up even if she does reach her own standard of perfection. The one who is always running uphill.
Life is full of big time influences that leave us either prepared to be a strong, healthy, independent woman, …or not. And you usually have zero control over any of those influences.
But you’re not a kid anymore. You know when things don’t feel right. You can pay attention to how your behaviour is connected to your thoughts about yourself. And you can reach out for support to help you dig through it.
You do wanna be that strong, independent one, right?
xoxo
Dianna
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