Learning to Like Imperfectly Perfect Me

I used to see myself as all my shortcomings. The inadequacies were all I focused on. I held my many flaws against myself and saw imperfection when I turned within.

We’re taught that we should be perfect. Our minds, bodies, lifestyle, everything about us should be top notch or as a minimum, aspiring to be. We should have an incredible body, be married to someone insanely awesome person, raise two incredible kids, have a successful career, live in an enviable house, own amazing stuff, go on holiday six times a year, be social and family orientated. All whilst being humble, stable, non-stressed out and full on shit together.

Even though I’ve strived hard to achieve a sense of perfection, I have never quite reached the island of ‘perfect me’. And all I’ve really done is engrained a sense of never feeling good enough.

So I don’t strive for perfection anymore, I’m trying to like imperfectly perfect me just the way she is, as she’s pretty damn perfect after all.

A drive to achieve more in life, a strive to be successful, to look and feel better, to be ‘perfect’

Perfectionism in these forms isn’t necessarily unhealthy. It is known as adaptive perfectionism and some researchers argue that this isn’t even perfectionism at all, it’s conscientiousness. However where perfectionism can sway towards becoming toxic to mental health is when the actions taken to achieve this are never seen as good enough. When we don’t ever feel like we’re meeting the goal, or we shuffle the benchmark mid-achieving and continuously extend the goal posts in a way that feels forever frustrating and debilitating.

This is known as maladaptive perfectionism, which is also linked to people experiencing significantly higher rates of burnout and mental health struggles.

Maladaptive perfectionism has this ironic way of being all about success. Wanting to achieve more and be better, in fact the best we can ever be, yet at the same time actually being the culprit for our own defeat. The tendency to be a maladaptive perfectionist brings with it a number of health issues. The data shows this to include depression, anxiety, obsessive compulsive disorder, eating disorders, insomnia, feelings of hopelessness and even suicide. And then there is another side of this coin, where mental illness can actually create the perfect environment for maladaptive perfectionism tendencies to appear.

Perfectionism itself is complicated

It’s healthy high standards vs. toxic unrealistic standards. It isn’t behavioural, it’s in the way we think about ourselves and what we do and in how we do it. It’s that inner voice and how critically it regards all that we do.

Over the past few years I’ve begun asking myself, ‘What is perfection to me? What does it even mean to be perfect? Does perfect really exist?’

I think not, actually.

Being perfect as a goal is an illusion similar to reaching for the moon. It’s so easy to get disheartened when it feels so far and unattainable.

Today, in this moment, I accept that I’m a masterpiece and a work in progress

I am complete, but also learning and growing. I’ve had to reframe the many ‘imperfections’ I’ve seen in myself, and positively reaffirm that I’m okay. No, I’m not perfect, but that really is alright, because every day I’m trying to be better. Better is good enough. And perfect, doesn’t exist anyhow. To be imperfect, is to be human.

Plus if I keep concentrating my time on hating all my flaws, the mistakes I’ve made, all the wrongs, the things I am yet to achieve. I’ll never spend any seeing all the good in me. I’ll get lost again in that continuous pressure to be aiming for more accomplishments, bigger milestones, a slimmer body, better success, newer stuff. Things that made me feel like perfection was possible, but that didn’t always heighten my potential, they often undermined, exhausted and depleted it. I felt worse, because all it was really doing was setting me up for failure.

I had this unhealthy relationship with perfectionism, because it felt like a mandatory requirement. Failure just wouldn’t do. Sub-satisfactory wasn’t an option. The only way to do life was perfectly perfect in every way, at every single stage.

And every time I didn’t feel that happened, I would lose myself in shame, embarrassment and guilt

Like when I went to University because it felt like the thing to do, even though deep down I hadn’t a clue what I wanted from my life yet. And then when I dropped out after the first year, I felt all this shame that’s taken years to shake off.

Then I failed again when I got divorced in my thirties. Being a single woman as my peers partnered up and were getting married, it felt like another way I wasn’t meeting some kind of perceived life goals.

And when I spent years on every diet possible to lose weight because my body didn’t ever feel good enough, and felt ashamed of it all the time because I struggled with my appearance and not meeting what I perceived was a beauty ideal.

I internalized my mental health struggles because to declare my mind wasn’t in a good state at times, was to admit an imperfection.

There are countless times I can recall that striving to be perfect, holding myself up against some idealised version of me, actually made me feel awful instead of good.

Apparently I’m not alone with this struggle. Katie Rasmussen, who researches child development and perfectionism at West Virginia University said, “As many as two in five kids and adolescents are perfectionists,” and “We’re starting to talk about how it’s heading toward an epidemic and public health issue.”

According to WHO, mental illness is more common now in places like the UK, US and Canada than it was a decade ago

And perfectionism is heavily linked to mental health illnesses.

Numerous studies have also found that thinking more about suicide is linked to perfectionism. Because when people feel they aren’t ever good enough, are concerned by mistakes and failures, have high personal standards, or have critical support networks, feel judged or that their social world isn’t good enough, this combined pressure creates an environment where suicide is thought of in more lethally favourable terms.

For those of you who’ve read my other blogs, you already know that any subject which negatively impacts mental health and wellbeing, is something I’m all in for talking about more.

Perfectionism is undoubtedly complicated. I’ve definitely swayed from adaptive to maladaptive perfectionism throughout my life

And I certainly recognize that at times, my way of dealing with high stress or emotional situations is to invest all my time and energy into making sure other areas of my life are ‘perfect’ to offset the seriously ‘non-perfect’ elements. So I’ve certainly used this as a stress coping mechanism.

I’m not saying we all do this, I’m not saying which type of perfectionist you may or may not be. I just found the data interesting and thought I’d share. Because my inner voice has been more critical than encouraging over the past decade, and I’ve struggled with a need to be perfect at different stages of my life. I’m a perfectionist in general at heart. And to not mark yourself as deficient when you are anything but perfect is challenging. However, I’m attempting to reframe the way I view myself from now on.

I’m no longer aiming for perfect, and going for ‘trying my best’ instead

Showing up, making effort, doing the work and trying to enjoy the process rather than berate myself for not being at the journey’s end, and that counts. That’s good enough for me. It’s got to be. Because I am imperfect. And by embracing my flaws I know I will feel happier and more at peace with myself.

Yes I am still going to make mistakes. I won’t get it right all the time. But I like that I’m able to admit when I’m wrong and that I will learn. I have hopes and dreams that haven’t been realized yet, but I work for them every day. But I also know that I don’t have to work myself into the ground to prove anything to anyone.

To be imperfect is not a bad thing and I’m going to stop telling myself as such.

I’m a beautiful mess, inside and out. And every day I am learning to like imperfectly perfect me a little more.

“Imperfections are not inadequacies; they are reminders that we’re all in this together.” – Brené Brown

Are you a perfectionist? Do you feel more adaptive or maladaptive? Are you on s similar journey of learning to like imperfectly perfect you?