Overcoming perfectionism in our lives and relationships

PERFECTIONISM is a trait that we can all be prone to in our daily lives. Like many things, it can absolutely serve a purpose – because of it, we strive to get things right, perform well, achieve our potential. But if it was to be graphed against wellbeing, it would peak and then decline past a certain point.

Too much perfection, and we set an almost impossible bar to reach in our expectations of ourselves and our lives.

This adds to our stress and can deplete us physically and emotionally. It also negatively impacts performance, ironically!

Our perfectionistic tendancies lead us to believe that we should never mess up, never show weakness, never behave inappropriately – as parents or partners, as siblings or colleagues. The reality is that this isn’t a realistic expectation. Instead, there is learning and growth to be experienced if we mess up from time to time – and if we then learn to handle our mistakes appropriately.

Glass half full or half empty?

Perfectionism is pessimism at its core. If we look at a glass of water on the table, do we consider it to be half full or half empty? Neither answer is wrong, but perfectionism focuses on what’s missing, that empty top half of the glass. Little to no acknowledgement is given to the water that is there.

In daily life, this approach can lead to a spotlight effect on the negatives, when the bigger picture may be that the negatives are only a piece of the overall – and the overall may actually be quite positive. 

Did you deliver a great presentation for example, but find yourself honing in on the couple of sentences that you stumbled over?

Being aware of our tendancies to zone in on the less-than-perfect can allow for a slight shift in perspective, to also include the good efforts, the other achievements, the progress. Focusing on our progress rather than perfection can be a game-changer in terms of outlook.

From imperfection comes growth

The old saying “Learn from our mistakes” is actually a very wise one. We can both learn and grow from them.

An incredibly inspiring TED talk available to listen to online by Dr Becky from Good Inside describes the process of rupture and repair; she emphasises that while she primarily offers these insights from a parenting perspective, they apply to all relationships in our lives.

She describes the scenario of the end of a long and challenging day - you shout at your child for something trivial, and they leave the room upset. At this point, a rupture in the relationship has occurred. 

Your child feels berated, angry, misunderstood, and upset. You feel guilty, inadequate and overwhelmed.

Rather than seeing this as a failure, Dr Becky advises you to use it as an opportunity to create connection, understanding and a stronger bond. We’re human. We all mess up, we all veer off the path we want to be on in our relationships. It’s inevitable. Following a rupture with a repair is the key to making this event a growth and a learning, rather than a negative and damaging event.

Repair, according to Dr Becky, would look like this: going to your child and apologising, acknowledging how your actions must have made them feel, taking accountability and removing any blame from them for how you’ve behaved, and committing to trying to do better in the future. These words can be powerful; to be made feel seen, understood and respected, albeit as a result of a prior outburst, shows our children that they matter.

They deserve an apology if treated wrongly. Their emotions are important. And we’re modelling how they too can repair with others going forward. This approach can break the generational cycles of silent treatment, dismissal and blaming that leads to so much unrecognised hurt and dysregulation. What a gift to offer them! All because of an imperfect approach to the original problematic interaction.

And how does this apply to our other relationships? All of us would appreciate being seen, validated and respected.

Being able to offer these things to others would serve to open conversations and build connection that would otherwise be weakened or destroyed after a challenging encounter.

Perfectly imperfect

Kintsugi is the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery with gold lacquer. It is based on the philosophy that treats breakage and repair as part of the history of an object, rather than something to disguise. How uplifting is that concept, what a relief that would be if we could apply that approach to ourselves.

What if we were to lift that weight of perfection and expectation from our shoulders, rather than berating ourselves for our imperfections? What if our imperfections, whether in our appearance or performances, made us who we are, and sum to our whole, which is the person that is valued and loved by others. Perfectly imperfect, embracing and accepting our flaws, learning and growing from them.