Letting Go of Being Perfect

I have decided that I’ve got to let go of expecting myself to be perfect.

I can be the best I can be, but striving for perfectionism is killing me. And when I look at something I know or fear or assume that I can’t do perfectly, I don’t do it at all. I am paralyzed by fear - fear of success, fear of failure, fear of imperfection.  And that is keeping me from doing and trying and learning and achieving a lot. Weight loss. Novel writing. Photography. Clean house. Work stuff. And on. And on. And on.

There is this song by Suzy Bogguss called “Aces.”  One of the lines in it describes exactly what I’m talking about. “If you can’t deal me the aces/you think I wouldn’t play.”  Yeah. Well. I wouldn’t play. I like to know I am going to win. Or at least I have a better shot at winning than you.

I know there are people in my life who would scoff. They would look at my desk - which is so messy as to be rendered useless - and laugh at my self-proclaimed need for perfection. They would look at my clothes, sitting in piles all over the place - and wonder when, exactly, this perfection thing kicks in.  They would look at my short-lived attempts at weight loss,  my half-finished novel, my messy kitchen, my crappy photographs and ask where I get off thinking I have to be perfect.  The answer is that failure is not an option - and if you don’t try, you can’t fail. My mom knows me pretty well, and she and I were talking about this one day and she said that she gets it - I don’t START cleaning, because I know I would never finish. It would never be good enough. So I just sit there, looking atthe mess, being stressed about the mess, and yet physically and psychologically unable to do anything about the mess.

I have never believed in baby steps. Giant Leaps! Giant Leaps get things done!

I can’t convince myself that something, some progress, is better than no progress.  Perfect is better than nothing! Nothing else is better than nothing!!

I have always been an all-or-nothing person. I have to stop. I have to learn balance.

Furthermore, I am very forgiving with other people - it’s only myself that I expect to be perfect.

So, just like my decision to accept myself, my emotions and my needs as perfectly normal and just STOP saying/thinking/feeling/believing that I am somehow crazy, difficult and needy, I have decided that I can stop thinking perfection.

And I have started to think progress.

I walked 4.1 miles last night. The old me would have expected 4.2 today.  The new me says let’s go to the gym, feel strong, and sweat some. Let’s see how that feels and set a goal at that point. Maybe it will be 4.2 miles. Maybe it will be an hour of swimming, or a few laps around the outdoor track, or maybe I’ll ride the stationary bike. The point is to do something, and to feel a sense of accomplishment afterwards - not a sense of dread that “I’ll never be able to do that tomorrow - might as well skip it.”

No honey, you might as well get your booty in there and move it! Every minute you are moving is a minute you are not sitting at your computer, fighting temptation. Isn’t that better?! YES! SO MOVE YOUR BOOTY!

I can’t let myself get lazy…but I can’t expect myself to be perfect.

Like so many other things in life, it’ a matter of balance. And I am working on it.

 

 

~ by Heather on April 18, 2008.