What It’s Like to Live With Perfectionism

You know that feeling when someone’s watching you perform a task?

You feel their eyes on you, and you freeze up. Suddenly, you’re making mistakes, or blanking on how to do the thing at all.

That’s what it’s like to live with my inner critic, except it’s loudly narrating how badly I’m failing right now, how I’ve failed in the past and will fail in the future, so why even bother trying?

It’s no wonder that perfectionism holds us back from wholehearted living.

Because if anything short of perfect is a failure, then of course we’ll feel frustrated, anxious, and dissatisfied. All. The. Time.

NOTHING lives up to the ideals I have in my head, and nothing satisfies my inner critic. I automatically zoom in on what’s wrong with me and the world around me, so it’s easy to miss what’s right.

How Perfectionism Is Destructive

It stops me from learning new things because I can’t stand being bad at doing something.

It’s an obstacle to finishing what I start (or even starting at all!) because I’m scared of failing.

It makes me feel angry and resentful when things don’t go as I want them to. 

It magnifies my flaws and minimizes my strengths, to the point where positive feedback doesn’t even land.

It dwells on mistakes and regrets—the times I hurt someone without meaning to, the opportunities I didn’t take—and what-ifs.

It holds me back from doing things that are important to me, from playing the guitar to speaking up on social issues—because I want to do them flawlessly.

It compares me to other people and warps admiration into envy, as if their success is taking away from mine.

And it can spiral me down into self-loathing faster than you can snap your fingers.

“Healthy Perfectionism” Is an Oxymoron

Some researchers think that a healthy perfectionism is possible.

After all, perfectionism can have positive outcomes like quality control and goal achievement. Others say that perfectionism is inherently unhealthy because it strives to achieve something that doesn’t exist: perfection. 

I’m in the second camp; I think “healthy perfectionism” is an oxymoron. Because even if you “shoot for the moon and land in the stars,” you’re going to feel bad about being among those stupid stars, because you were aiming for the damn moon! Even if the outcome is positive by other people’s standards, you won’t feel satisfied with it.

Bottom line: Perfection is a delusion, and pursuing it sets you up for failure.

Excellence, on the other hand, is attainable—and there are so many different ways to get there. We can learn to strive for excellence instead of perfection, and to actually be content when we achieve it.

How to Break Through Perfectionism

Perfectionists hate making mistakes.

It reinforces our narrative that we are dumb and worthless and shouldn’t even try because we’re going to fail anyway.

But like I tell my kids all the time, everyone starts as a beginner. The way people get good at something is by making mistakes and trying again. Every time I hear myself say it, I think, “Lady, why don’t you take some of your own advice?”

The Power of Yet

When I first saw this video, I cried.

In Janelle Monae’s The Power of Yet on Sesame Street, Bert can’t get his song performance quite right. Cookie Monster burns the cookies. They get frustrated, but they try again. And eventually, they improve.

Now that I’m aware of The Power of Yet, when I hear my inner critic saying, “You’re not good at money management” or “You didn’t finish writing that piece you started,” I gently nudge myself to add a “yet.” 

When I mess up and my inner critic says, “That was really stupid,” or “What were you thinking?” I can redirect my thoughts to, “Next time, I’ll try it this way instead.”

Like Anne Lamott says, the way we break through perfectionism is to make a lot of mistakes. We see that we don’t die, and usually no one really cares—or at least remembers. Instead of feeling ashamed of doing things imperfectly, I’m learning to feel proud for showing up and putting myself out there in the first place.

With a LOT of practice, I’ve begun to rewire my brain and quiet my inner critic—or at least ignore it.

A Work in Progress

What I once thought of as “self improvement,” I now call “personal development.”

It’s a shift from trying to fix myself to becoming best possible version of myself.

I’m now more aware with the ways that I’m evolving each day, treating myself and others more kindly, pausing and choosing how to respond more often instead of reacting intensely and automatically. When I look back at older versions of myself, I can see that tiny adjustments add up to big strides over time.

I’m learning to be okay with not always getting it right. I’m becoming less fragile and more willing to do the hard, messy work of becoming a better human. This is the work of the evolving perfectionist.

How We Can Heal Together

I love connecting with people who GET IT—who know the struggle of perfectionism and are doing the work to heal. It helps to have a community who can gently remind us to be kind to ourselves, and who can point out where we’ve evolved.

Here’s how we can connect:

• Join me in The Evolving 40 reflection practice, whether or not you post publicly. Email me to share your takeaways and aha moments!

• Sign up below for resources on healing perfectionism. I’ve studied it — as well as related anxiety, depression, self-compassion, and self-acceptance — for many years and want to help other people who are their own worst critics. I recently learned that I have ADHD and will be weaving in those resources, as well.

• Subscribe to the Semi-Together podcast, where my sister, Gillian Burgess, and I discuss themes relating to perfectionism with compassion and a sense of humor.

• Chat with me at @evolvingperfectionist on Instagram or email me at melia@evolvingperfectionist.com.

Let’s keep evolving together,
❤️Melia