Perfectionism!
I was going to write about fitness in this post today but, decided that instead of giving you facts and education I would come to you as my authentic self. First things first, if you are looking for a blog post with perfect grammar and all things intellectual you may want to find another blog to read! Here you will only receive my authentic thoughts, observations, experiences and information I have gained through living, reading and educating myself along the way.
So, let’s talk perfectionism! I am and always have been one who wanted to do everything perfectly. I can remember from the time I was very young always wanting to please others and myself by doing everything right and doing it THE best! Was I born this way? Did it stem from a strict upbringing? I’m not totally sure but, it is something that I know many people struggle with. If I felt I was attempting to do something that I wasn’t going to be perfect at I just wouldn’t do it. When this happened I knew I was possibly letting opportunities go that could have been very beneficial for myself and let them go anyway for fear I wouldn’t be perfect at it.
Why have I chosen to write about perfectionism? In the last few years I have been doing a lot of self-development and have spoken with many others who are tied to perfectionism. In my journey through self- development I have come to realize that perfectionism can create the polar opposite of the actual meaning of the word “refusal to accept any standard short of perfection”, it actually can create nothing at all! Perfectionism can create so many missed opportunities and stop us from experiencing so many amazing things in our lives! One big example for me was putting this Blog and Website together. I didn’t feel my ideas were perfect enough to publish it therefore, it took me seven months to finally say, “so what if it isn’t perfect, I’m going for it anyway”! I’m so glad I finally did because now I have the opportunity to look at it, learn from it and improve on it!
In my experience we should always be improving ourselves and learning new things about our health, our nutrition, our mindset, our experiences, our relationships and our brain power. If we get stuck in the perfectionism mentality we don’t give ourselves anything to improve upon. If all these areas were perfect already life would be pretty boring and we would have nothing to look forward to.
Most importantly, perfectionism can create a lot of self-beat up which is a whole other topic for a post! When we think all things should be perfect and something ends up not being this way for us we can be extremely critical of ourselves which can lead to so much anxiety and stress.
I am a work in progress! My advice to myself is awareness, when I see myself going back into old habits of this desire to be perfect I stop, take a breath and think about the joy and growth of being beautifully imperfect! If this post speaks to you and your desire for perfectionism, I hope you too will become aware, take a step back and give yourself a break as well!
I love this quote by Kim Collins, “Strive for continuous improvement, instead of perfection”.
Love,
Robin
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