Is Perfectionism Keeping Me From Living My Life?

Have you been wanting to do something but find yourself putting it off and then realize months have passed? Maybe years? Maybe it was learning a new language, picking up a new hobby, or applying for your dream job? You are not alone. Perfectionism can keep you from living your life. It can be subtle, barely undetectable or it can be crippling. Keep on reading to learn 3 different ways that perfectionism is holding you back. And I will also go over ways to overcome it!

Perfectionism keeps you from doing things until they are just so.

Life will never be just so and you be just so, meaning just get over yourself and do the thing you want to do. Hopefully you felt my love and push for you to go for it. There is no time better than the present. Did you know people will keep themselves from applying to that dream job, just because they don’t check off every box in the job description. Guess what, more often than not the person who gets the job doesn’t check off everything in the box. So don’t let that stop you! Research has even shown that this can be a more crippling truth for women…and yours truly knows this from personal experience! As this Harvard article goes on to explain, women need to check off 100% before they apply, what?! Click here to read more.

So what do you do? You need to embrace the Nike slogan and just do it already! Five minutes a day can have you speaking that language in a year. Now you can order your food like a local. Amazing! And I want to stop you right there, because you might be thinking “well I won’t sound like a local. That’s impossible. I won’t have the vocab and my accent will give me away.”

News flash who cares? Literally no one. Just your perfectionist brain. So get out there and put 5 minutes a day into that passion project. Learn that language, write more, call up people to starve the loneliness, or just submit that resume already. You literally have so little to lose (if anything) and so much to gain!

Perfectionism keeps you from loving yourself.

So if we continue with the notion from above, if we keep ourselves held to unrealistically high standards, we are essentially not loving our messy human selfs. No person on this planet is perfect, no matter how “put together” they seem. We all struggle and suffer, causing ourselves pits in our stomachs. Perfectionist minds will say things like:

“I will be happier with my body and more loved if I just lose 10 more pounds”

“I will be ready to ask for that promotion after I take this course”

“I’ll start dating when…I’ll turn in that paper after…”

See the pattern? A perfectionist mind puts things off. Puts off living life. The best athletes, authors, scientists, get great, by doing. So don’t let the “I will do it when” get in the way of living your life. Instead try to use affirmations and self compassion to support you in doing life. Yeah it might not be perfect, but hey it gets done. And by doing the things, you will get better at the things.

Perfectionism can lead to isolation.

Last but definitely not least is the absolute sadness of being lonely that can come from striving to be perfect. More often than not, a person with a perfectionist mind will spend hours upon hours in their minds going over and over things. Or sometimes mindlessly scrolling or watching reruns on TV. Why? Because they are trying to cope with the feelings. It doesn’t work though. It only makes it worse.

Another thing that can happen, is that you find yourself not worthy of sharing with others, because you are not “good enough” yet to share. This keeps you from connecting with others and as a social creature, this is so harmful for us humans. This will keep us from deepening our current relationships and even from seeking out new ones.