One of the ironies of being a perfectionist is that it leads to lack of accomplishment and a great deal of imperfection. It can lead to a lack of accomplishment because if you have this mentality you often won’t start something if you don’t think you can get it right or because you spend so much time debating in your mind over and over the smallest details and exaggerate the consequences of not getting them right. It leads to imperfection because you don’t get a chance to fail and to learn from your failure and the procrastination leads to a rushed and flawed result.
My swim instructor, who is very chatty, tells lots of jokes and tries to build a rapport with his clients to create a relaxed environment and an element of trust which is important when dealing with adults who are afraid of the water. He’s a very good teacher but he’s also very good at reading people. In the course of my lessons, he pointed out to me that I seem very tense and serious with a tendency to make things harder than they are. He told me that I seem intense and like someone who always got straight A’s in school and always wants to get things right the first time and to not look bad. All those things are true.
I spent a lot of time over the past week or so thinking about where this pattern of behavior came from. It didn’t come from any pressure from my parents as they just wanted me to be happy doing whatever I wanted and didn’t place emphasis on being the best at anything. If not my parents, I realize that other childhood influences likely played a role, like growing up I didn’t really fit in socially and in some contradictory way I wore it like a badge of honor but also I really did want to be accepted. I wanted to be the best at something because I thought that maybe then people might like me, even if only teachers, and I thought that if I placed high standards for myself and lived up to them that I could have a level of self-satisfaction that would override any need I had for outside approval. It seems that I thought, probably subconsiously, that if I messed up then everyone would be right for not liking me, so I put a lot of pressure on myself to not mess up. I think the perfectionism idea also relates to being in control. I have often felt that nothing is stable but to keep sane I have this need for consistency. To have a certain idea of the way things are supposed to be and to be obssessed with wanting to make it happen and to not let anyone ruin it was one way to stay in control and make things stable.
As I think of it, having and trying to live up to very high standards is a good thing and I’m glad I have this mentality, but I think I need to change the way I get from point A to point B, so to speak. I have to convince myself of what I know to be intellectually true that it’s good to not be in control all the time and that that my actions should not be dictated by how others’ impressions of me may or may not be affected by how I perform them. Recently I’ve been making a conscious effort to get into the habit of just doing without overanalysis. It’s a different way of thinking to get used to.
One place I can immediately put to practice being less of a perfectionist is in my swimming lessons. Like today my instructor told me that it’s okay to fuck up and to not get it perfect the first time (sorry to use the f-word; it’s just how he said it). He said that I don’t need to worry about being embarrassed in front of him because he’s there to teach me. He said to not worry but that each time I’ll fuck up a little less and in that way it will become perfect that way over time.
