3 Shifts To Loosen the Grip of Perfectionism Without Losing Yourself
The programming of perfectionism runs deep—and it's smart. Because you're smart. It's not some foreign part of you or some alien descended into your system—it's the part of you driven to be better, do better, and live better.
It's nobility, loyalty, honesty, and all kinds of other virtues tangled together, and then drained of any real compassion for the moments in life when you're not perfectly everything.
Even writing about perfectionism triggers my own—should I take a stand, share my own stories, or stay neutral and informational? What's the right way? Or do I even have the clarity at all to say something worth saying? What if I change my mind later.
You probably know this voice well.
My take on perfectionism is that it is something you never completely outgrow or get rid of. Thinking that you can completely eradicate yourself from ever feeling an impulse for perfection again is really just perfectionism itself.
COMPONENTS OF PERFECTIONISM
Understanding the components that make up perfectionism can shed some light on how to loosen its grip on your life: it's part disposition, part desire, and part habit.
The disposition is one that favors excellence and enjoys completeness.
The desire is what moves you towards improvement and satisfaction.
The habit is the doubt, the thoughts, and the hesitation you face.
None of these are inherently wrong, and trying to figure out what's wrong about you (i.e. making perfectionism wrong) again, just reinforces the cycle*. So what can you do instead?
PRACTICES TO LOSEN ITS GRIP
What I've practiced is a combination of a practice of letting go, changing my aim, and making new decisions.
Letting Go
One of the most impactful tools I've ever learned for dealing with anxiety, intrusive thoughts, and ruminations is one you can feel with a quick visualization.
Imagine you're holding a ball in your hand that just fills your palm. Feel the weight of the ball. Now, put the ball down.
What happened when you put the ball down? Did you have to do anything else first?
No? You mean…you didn't have to pick something else up in order to put that ball down? Nope, you didn't.
Thoughts work this way too. And a lot of emotion can work this way as well.
It's important to understand that this isn't gaslighting yourself. It isn't trying to reason with your thoughts so they'll leave you alone, suppressing how you feel, or disregarding yourself.
It's just letting go and releasing the white-knuckle grip that usually means you're trying to control.
Just like letting go of the ball, the act of letting go doesn't have to mean anything about you or anything about the ball. It just gives you a break from holding it.
At one point I had so many thoughts in a day about my divorce that I kept a small ball on my desk. I made myself physically pick it up every time I was thinking about the divorce, just so that I had a physical representation of how much energetic capacity those thoughts took up.
When something doesn't feel just right—you can put that ball down.
When something feels incomplete, demands your attention, seems like it must be improved—you can let that go.
Changing Your Aim
In high school I was a valedictorian who found anything less than an A absolutely unacceptable. I felt I had to function at a 98% or above at all times—or at least on average. Which isn't much wiggle room at all.
I can still tell you the one assignment that I ever received a B on. It was a self-portrait in art class. I promptly devoted my entire sketchbook to learning how to draw faces and went on to win an honorable mention at an area art show with a charcoal drawing of eight 'drama masks' in varying sizes and expressions.
Because I wasn't very fit, I also panicked about not passing gym class with an A. I found out the exact requirements and pushed myself to reach them even though I hated anything traditionally athletic.
That kind of neurosis doesn't just end when you graduate. But, the pressure changes.
I realized after graduation that no one actually cares what your GPA is in high school. At least, no one besides college admissions officers. Even then, less than a 4.0 is fine.
The value of all the work I did just vanished.
I've since learned from my, deliberately, C-average student of a husband that you can just decide to not do all of that work in the first place…and still be a good, successful, and happy human.
I've made my perspective shift tangible, following along with some of these grade-level percentages. Instead of aiming for 98% I get to decide what a reasonable aim is. For some things (like in my work) I still like to feel I'm hitting a 80-90%. For most things, though, 80% is absolutely great. And for a lot of things 60-70% is just fine.
I ask "How can I give myself a little more wiggle room here?" and then when something is a little off I remember that there aren't any teachers policing my participation and grading my work. It's okay if it's just good enough.
Making New Decisions
Speaking of 'good enough' that brings me to the last practice I mentioned—making new decisions.
One of the things perfectionism robs you of is autonomy. It holds you accountable to both external and imagined internal expectations that feel impossible to meet at times.
When you reclaim your decision making power, you take back your ability to say 'that's good enough'—and mean it. If you know your Human Design authority type, this work gets even more powerful.
Trusting your own decisions—instead of always waiting for someone else to make them for you, reward your efforts, and validate your ways—sets you up for a life that you can actually enjoy.
One that isn't necessarily perfect, but feels right for you.
Because decisions aren't about determining what's good and bad, right and wrong, black and white—they're about releasing what doesn't work for you and living into what does.
Underneath all three of these practices is a whole bunch of programming to uproot, and a lot of it's held in place by old, stagnant energy that's stuck in our bodies and ruling the way we think, feel, and make decisions now. In my work, we target the energy that's contributing to your current challenges, release that shit, and move what comes up into clear action forward.
If you're a high-achiever or overthinker who's going through—or ready for—a big life transition…and you know you need a new way to get where you want to go, book a complimentary call with me and let's see how I can help.
