I did not write a blog post yesterday. I committed to writing a blog post every day for 90 days, and I failed. It was the first time I did not post in over 40 days, the first time since
Day 1 of my 90 day rewiring project and this blog. As a perfectionist, this failure feels shameful even though I know intellectually that it really doesn't matter. I fail at something every single day, and yet have clung to the idea that someday I could become the perfect perfectionist. Most recently, I was hoping to travel a "perfect" path of self-realization. While the idea of experiencing "perfect self-realization" makes me laugh out loud (literally, just now...), my default expectation is that everything should and must be perfect. How do I change this deeply embedded false belief? I suppose I just have to keep taking baby steps in this direction, as with everything else. To all you recovering perfectionists out there, what has helped you relax?
Here's what to do: Build up a mythology around that missed post...
ReplyDeleteDay 44: When it started, I had no idea what might happen...but I went forward anyway...
(Y'know with like dramatic swelling music, strings, drums, dum tada dum dum...etc...)
What suprises me the most about Day 44, that fateful and awful day, is that I survived.
For some reason, despite total defeat, I had lived to fight another day...
So I rose--phoenix-like from the ashes, I gathered what I could and...
Y'know--that sort of shit--works for me. I'll let you finish the rest.
Winners Never Quit, Quitters Never Win.
Git in there.
This is an area that has shifted dramatically in the past 10 years. Brené Brown was an early break through for me with her book The Gifts of Imperfection. Most recently I've been seeing how perfectionism comes up in my new business, Zivan. The marketing coach I work with has supported my process around sharing the less-than-perfect, because something perfect that never gets shared is not as good as something unpolished that I share. This is how we learn and grow and change and heal. Mistakes, imperfections, experiments, explorations. I'm so grateful for how much more liberated I feel. And, still overwhelmed by how much the vestiges of perfection still reveal themselves to me in random moments, in unexpected areas that I haven't spent much time thinking about and suddenly here's perfectionism woven in.
ReplyDeleteThese days, it's very easy for me to spot Perfectionism in different forms and have a counter-narrative to apply. I am well-acquainted with this Part and have a working relationship with her. I am a mediator in Perfectionism's relationships with Anxiety, Catastrophizing, and Shame. It's a work in progress, but what powerful and liberating work it is!