Yesterday I listened to a podcast I stumbled upon featuring Dr. Jennifer Finlayson-Fife, an LDS psychotherapist who mainly focuses on problems with relationships and intimacy, but whose main goal is to help people discover what it is to just be human, and the challenges that relate to being human. The podcast (which I highly recommend you listen to/read), called "The Perils of Perfectionism," talked about something I've long struggled with, but only lately recognized in myself--perfectionism.I've always seen myself as "determined," but I never understood how that could be a bad thing until I started on this journey of self-understanding. One experience that stands out in my mind comes from my middle schools years. I know...that was a bad time for everyone (it should be illegal to sell baby blue eye shadow to a minor, by the way). As 7th grade was coming to a close, it was time for tryouts for the next year's--wait for it--cheer leading squad. What possessed me to even try out, I still don't entirely know. Perhaps it was the desire to be like my mom, a truly fit-for-the-job, beautiful, slim, and popular teenager. Perhaps I just wanted to be more popular--I had friends, but I rarely was spoken to by people outside my circle. Don't get me wrong, I don't think I was disliked. However, I did seem to fly under the radar quite unnoticed most of the time. Regardless, I did try out. And by some strange twist of fate, MADE THE TEAM!! Whaaaa??? I originally tried out just for fun, but now that that was over, I had to decide if I really wanted to go through with it. I knew there were other girls who REALLY wanted to be on the team, so I had better decide quickly if I wanted to give someone else the chance. I ended up going forward with it--a decision I really ended up regretting.
There were only five of us, meaning someone (usually me) was the odd-man-out. I never felt like I fit in with the other girls, and sometimes even felt a bit bullied by them. I noticed that some of the girls who were not on the team (and who frankly, I thought didn't care one tiny bit about cheer leading) started to treat me differently, and not in a good way. Some starting to talk to and about me like I was stuck-up, trying to be better that them, and the like. I didn't understand what was happening. I didn't feel like I had changed. I only wanted to try something new--something I thought might be fun, and might help me fit in more along the way. Instead, it made me miserable.
After confiding to my mom how I was feeling, she told me that it was ok if I wanted to quit. Inside, I wanted to quit sooooo bad. There were days I would come home from practice in tears because I hated it so much. But for some reason, I couldn't quit. I couldn't walk away from something I (and others) had invested so much time, effort, and money into. I didn't want to let anyone down. So I suffered through it.
This experience is only one of many that I can look back on and the see role my "perfectionism" played. I often have felt less-than, and still try so hard to make up for short-comings (sometimes real, sometimes only in my own mind). One thing that has left me feeling less-than is my Erb's Palsy (a permanent nerve injury to my right shoulder from birth). I've never been able to do things the same way other kids could. Even though I often adapted well enough to participate, I was never really the same. Another thing that has likely contributed to my poor self-esteem is my ADD, which (until recently) I thought was just a large collection of quirks and short-comings that I needed to work harder at eliminating.
In the podcast mentioned earlier, Dr. Finlayson-Fife talks about different kinds of perfectionists. One type feels they need to always strive to be superior to others--they want to be looked up to. Another type (the type I relate to) works non-stop to cover up their flaws in an attempt to be seen as adequate. That's right, adequate. Not great, superior, awesome, or without defect. Just adequate--always trying to be perfect in what they can control (and sometimes even what they can't control) because of the sense that without this sort of perfection, society will not accept them.
She also talks about two very differing achievement levels of perfectionism--overachievers and underachievers. Overachieving perfectionists are always trying to take their performance to the next level in order to be approved of. Underachieving perfectionists may fear failure so much that it prevents them from trying at all. Dr. Finlayson-Fife emphasizes that for both types, the root of the problem is the same: "it's the intolerance of making mistakes. It's the intolerance of exposing their humanity to themselves and to others." It's normal for us as humans to have high expectations--to want to improve. The problem comes when we somehow start to see ourselves as "above" the human experience--that it's not ok for us to make mistakes.
This type of mindset can be crippling to real development. I've seen it in my own life. At different points, I've been both an overachiever and an underachiever. I often look at things amiss in my life, and decide that if I can't be perfect in that portion of my life, it's not worth working on. Anything less than perfect would be considered a failure--even if I gained skills/knowledge/relationships, etc. along the way.
It's so important that we learn to forgive ourselves for the ways in which we fall short. Partly because we are learning, and with learning comes mistakes. And partly, and perhaps more importantly, because our expectations may have been unreasonable in the first place. We judge how well we do by comparing ourselves to others. It's natural, and it's normal--up until the point where we begin to judge our value by comparing ourselves to to others. In the scriptures, we are told, "For all have not every gift given unto them; for there are many gifts, and to every man is given a gift by the Spirit of God. To some is given one, and to some is given another, that all may be profited thereby." We all have different strengths, talents, and, yes, weaknesses. We will never be satisfied if we try to gauge our worth by looking at the successes of others because WE ARE NOT THEM!.
While we sometimes wear "perfectionism" as a badge of honor, like it somehow signifies that we are hard-working, determined, or motivated, it really doesn't serve any of us. Perfectionism is self-destructing because it pushes us to act only to gain the approval of others, not because we inherently want to do and be good. If our end-goal is to gain approval from others (something we really have zero control over), we will very often feel we have failed. If we can learn to embrace progress in our lives, one mistake, disappointment, or success at a time, THEN we can be satisfied with out efforts. We have to have faith that there is more for us that we can see with our own eyes. Dr. Finlayson-Fife explained that "the most meaningful understanding of faith is...striving towards what you believe is good, even though you haven't reached it yet."
One of my goals in living a happier, more simple life, is to learn to be ok with being ok. I don't have to be perfect. In fact, I don't even have to be good at something to be valued. Mediocre is a perfectly fine place to start. Do I want to be mediocre in all aspects of my life, for my whole life? Heavens NO! But to expect anything less than perfection of myself is to chain myself to the cannon balls of self-doubt, self-deprecation, self-loathing, and misery before jumping into the ocean of life. Change is hard, and I may have to file away at the chains linking me to those weights one exhausting stroke at a time, but life is hard too. I don't need my own unrealistic ideas to drag me down. I believe that learning to let go of my perfectionism will leave me feeling freer and more at peace than I have ever felt before. And that thought is enough to get me started. Now who has a rasp I can borrow?
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