I am a recovering perfectionist. I’m not sure I was born a perfectionist. I think inside I was a messy, creative, parent pleaser being raised by a perfectionist. I was an out-of-the-box kid being raised by in-the-box parents and one of them was a perfectionist. What I have observed about perfectionism is that it is often a result of disapproval and a lack of confidence. That is certainly the case in my life. I learned how to do things very well and to strive for perfection in many areas because that’s what I saw my mom doing; however, my parents also approved of me, despite being imperfect and raised me to be confident. It actually wasn’t until I was older that I struggled with perfectionism and how to overcome it.
As an adult, I experienced true disapproval from people whose opinions mattered to me at the time. Nothing I could do to pleased them and for a few years, I thought that I could earn that approval if I did everything perfectly. After all, someone who is perfect is exempt from constant criticism, right? Wrong.
Instead, the harder I worked to be perfect, the more I was criticized. Why? Because nit-picky people will not be pleased! I learned the lesson the hard way and it came at a high cost: exhaustion and discontent. Does this sound like you?
Thankfully, I only lost a few years of my life to perfectionism before I could overcome it. And once I realized that the constant criticism would never stop, I had to remove those people from my life. It wasn’t a healthy relationship and it was difficult to move on with life without them, but it had to happen. Once I was able to move forward, I was caught between freedom and fear. I still feared disapproval and to this day, have a difficult time allowing people in my home without exhausting myself cleaning first. But, thankfully, I’m a work in progress!
So, how can you push through to overcome perfectionism?
Five Steps to Overcome Perfectionism
- What is Your “Why?”—
Why are you a perfectionist? What does it stem from? Most often, fear of acceptance, or lack thereof, is at the root of perfectionism. When we feel disapproval, or criticism, we strive to please. The harder we strive, the more stress we feel, and we all know what happens to our most important relationships when we are under stress. We do NOT handle them perfectly!
Then, a vicious cycle ensues. I bark at my kids when I’m under stress, instead of being kind. That leads to my own disapproval of how I have behaved, making me feel like more of a failure than when I started out and right back down the rabbit hole I go! Take a good, long look at yourself and figure out where your perfectionism is coming from. Whose approval are you seeking that you are not attaining? What is your fear?
- Face Reality—
I have news for you. You are not perfect nor will you ever be perfect on your own. Therefore, if you are striving for perfection, you will feel like a miserable failure again and again. You will never achieve your goal! How depressing!
The sooner you can face the reality that you will never be perfect, this side of Heaven, the better off you will be going through life. When you are striving to do everything perfectly, you are essentially saying, “God, I don’t trust You to cover this.” You don’t have to be perfect when the God of the Universe has your back!
- Set Attainable Goals—
Being unsuccessful is what keeps us striving for more. Always coming up just a little short will push you to try even harder tomorrow. There is some good in that. But not when it comes to dealing with perfectionism. Because striving to be perfect means you NEVER achieve success. I don’t know about you, but if I never met a goal, and never achieved anything I had set my mind to, I would be depressed.
In order to kick your perfectionism to the curb, you must set for yourself attainable goals. Then, once you meet them, you need to celebrate! When perfectionism takes over, it paralyzes me. For example, I think, “If I don’t have the time or energy to fully clean the bathroom, top to bottom, cupboards, drawers, scrub the floor, etc. then I’m not going to do it at all.” Well, guess what that gets me. A really gross bathroom. Because I rarely have time to do it perfectly. And if I DO have the time and clean the bathroom really well, it’s a matter of TWO minutes before someone has peed on the toilet or left their dirty clothes on the floor. It’s life! Face reality and set practical, attainable goals. The success you experience will motivate you for more success!
- Understand that Perfectionists Can Really Be Annoying—
I think back to my years of perfectionism and wonder what people must have thought. One time, I went to the home of a gal from church. We weren’t close friends, but she had known me during my perfectionist years. When I got there, she said almost immediately, “I JUST noticed a handprint on my mirror right before you came! I’m so embarrassed.”
First of all, I never ever cared or care about what someone else’s house looks like! Ever! Not even during my time as a perfectionist! But obviously, I put people on edge because I was so particular about everything. They didn’t even feel they could be real around me! I would NEVER have even noticed the fingerprints on her mirror…but I was the one putting her on edge. She feared my disapproval! Eww. I had no idea that people felt that way about me because that’s not even close to who I am or want to be!
By the time that happened, I had already kicked most of my perfectionist tendencies to the curb, but that certainly served as a wake-up call to me! I was completely unaware of the message I was sending other people—and it was a message of disapproval. That was a motivator for me to change my ways!
- Remember Your Audience of One—
If you are born-again, you are a child of God. The blood of Christ has covered you and made you perfect through Him. That doesn’t mean you don’t sin and you actually are perfect, but instead, that God covers all of your imperfections through His blood.
It’s sort of like a cake—When I bake a cake, my layers are almost always lopsided because my oven is not level (I know that can be fixed—just one of those things I don’t get to until it’s too late!). I have to cut some of the cake off to try to make them even. Then you put the crumb-coat on and the cake is….UGLY! But when you get enough layers of pretty frosting on it, you can really make it look level and perfect, right?
That’s what I think of with how God sees us. Christ has covered our imperfections—like a good, thick layer of icing. It doesn’t mean that the ugly crumb-coat is not there though. The imperfections are still there.
God knows our hearts. He sees every sin and every imperfection and He loves us anyway. He approves of you!
You can’t effectively minister to others if you are still striving and believing you’re achieving perfection. The only time you can really minister to others is when you accept your imperfections, allow Christ to cover them, and then be real with others about them! Perfect people are not encouraging to broken people. The last thing on Earth a struggling mom needs is to hear about how you have never yelled at your kids. Not encouraging.
Be real, Mom! It’s time to overcome and kick that perfectionism aside to allow God to really rule in your heart. You will become more confident because of His approval; you will raise more confident kids as they see you striving less; and you’ll be able to relax and enjoy this crazy ride with all of its imperfections!
RElated: Learning to Go With the Flow
