Imperfectionism
We may have been going about our whole life not even realising we are a perfectionsist – or at least have some perfectionist qualities. The thing is, unless we take time truly self reflect and get conscious about what’s driving our behaviours, its very easy to think its ‘just who we are.’ These perfectionist traits can affect our relationships, make us feel unnecessary stress, and at the core - affect our overall health and wellbeing.
Most perfectionists grew up being praised for achievement and performance. You may have been praised for getting good marks at school, for manners, for rule following, people pleasing, appearance and high achieving in sports.
It’s OK if we start to realise some perfectionist traits in our self (in fact this is a great starting point!). The key is to get curious about how we can make incremental changes, and get a bit more perspective as to how we can live more courageously and take a few risks! Practicing yoga and mindfulness can us help us feel empowered to make changes in our thoughts and behaviours step by step. Ultimately, living a life with meaning, growth and fulfillment means you will need to trade in your perfectionist qualities for imperfection.
Identifying perfectionist qualities
The continual hustle and grind to be the perfect becomes very draining. Brene Brown Ph.D explains that this continual striving does not create the self-protection we think it will, and actually leads to poor health outcomes.
Lets understand what perfectionism is more clearly. Perfectionism is:
Other focussed, rather than based on our own true values - we continuously wonder ‘what will other people think’?
It’s a defence mechanism against our greatest fear – our fear of failure.
Perfectionism is therefore not the key to success. In fact, research shows perfectionism restricts achievement and is correlated with low emotions, anxious tendencies, addiction and life paralysis, or missed opportunities.
Just to clarify, here’s what perfectionism is not:
Perfectionism is not the same thing as striving for excellence.
Perfectionism is not about healthy achievement and growth.
Perfectionism is not self-improvement, but rather it’s trying to earn approval.
How do we become a perfectionist?
Somewhere along the way we adopted this dangerous and debilitating belief system. We carry around an internal narrative that sounds something like this….
‘I am what I accomplish, and how well I accomplish it.’ So we perform, perfect and prove ourselves over and over.
We pick this narrative up from our surroundings – the media, from school, our parents. Researchers call this ‘social conditioning.’ Paul Dolan, Professor of Behavioural Science in Psychological and Behavioural Science at the London School of Economics and Political Science explains that social conditioning or social norms are prescribed by others and adopted by us. They are not our true core authentic beliefs.
Healthy striving and personal growth
In yoga, we see this as an opportunity for us to notice these layers of conditioning, become very compassionate toward our self, and begin to become conscious enough to let go, and untangle the layers – until we can live in more alignment to our true self.
Self improvement and personal growth is essential for living a fulfilling life. We could use the term ‘healthy striving’ interchangeably with personal growth. Healthy striving is taking on a mindset focussed on asking our self ‘ how can I improve?’ How can I approach this situation with a growth mindset?
Examples of embracing imperfection
You need to go on a weekend away to Wellington. You know there will be lots of outdoor walking and also a nice dinner out in the evening. Rather than squeezing into your over night bag your usual ‘going out shoes’ you just take your walking shoes that ‘sort of also work’ as a going out shoe.
Benefits: Your bag is a lot lighter. This makes a huge difference to the comfort of carrying around your bag during the day, and you have more freedom to experience more, more walking, and spontaneous interactions that bring your joy, and physical health benefits.
You have a speaking function coming up. Instead of attempting to deliver the ‘perfect polished speach’ or workshop presentation you decide to aim for ‘average delivery’ - something that’s 60% of your best effort.
Benefit: You feel more slightly more relaxed during your delivery knowing it doesnt have to be perfect. Being relaxed means when you make little glitches along the way you are more likely to just ‘move on’ rather than dwell on it. Also, the recipients of your speech will likely feel like they are getting to experience something more authentic and meaningful if its not 100% polished and perfect.
You need to do a piece of writing/ a new blog but noticed you never seem to have time? (yes this is what happened for this blog…). Consider giving yourself a set time frame and say to yourself ‘Even if this is pretty crappy, Im going to get something down as a ‘shitty first draft’ by 8pm. (For me the library was actually closing in 45min so that was my given timeframe for getting down my first draft of this blog). Of course you can revisit and edit the next day.
Benefits: The important part is to start. Having a set amount of time (usually a shortish timeframe helps us start). Then I find I get quite into it…..Planning a workout? Aim for 30minutes, rather than 1 hour.
Benefit: You are more likely to do it more consistently if the idea sounds more ‘do-able.’ Consistency is more important than intensity when we are trying to ‘get back on track’ with our health and wellbeing.Thinking of a big life change? Maybe you want time out to live more simply, have some time to yourself? For me, when I left my corporate job to live a more simple fulfilling and creative life, I said to myself - ‘I’ll treat this as an experiment with my life’. Even though I never really knew how things would work out, I was motivated to take a risk and embrace being imperfect. In fact I would say its more fulfilling not planning everything out and having a mindset of “I know I don’t know everything yet but I think I have enough within me to work it out and learn as I go.” This experience lead to many more benefits than I ever could foresee.
Live with courage
To summarise, living with courage means embracing imperfection. Most people are too scared to take a risk with their life for fear of failure. To live courageously means we say to our self ‘It’s OK to make a mistake, because I know I can learn and grow.’ So telling our self ‘I am imperfect’ means we are ok with stuffing up.
We might not feel courageous straight away but embracing a mindset of imperfection will lead to a more courageous life. Step by step we take more risks and choose love over fear. We start to notice in fact, everything and everyone is imperfect – you, me, everyone, and even everything in nature when we really look closely.
Remember you are fabulously imperfect – just like the rest of us. So what would you do next if you were not scared of failing?
If you like the sound of this, and want to learn more, check out the upcoming retreats and courses at Heart and Mind Yoga studio:
Re-energise and Revitalise mini retreat 2nd August - a half day yoga and fitness retreat to revive your health and wellbeing going into Spring.
The Art of Living Well 5 week Course - Starts 26 August. A 5 week course to build your inner strengths drawing on the wisdom of yoga and the science of wellbeing
Jo Jarden is a certified personal trainer and yoga teacher in Christchurch New Zealand and the founder of Heart and Mind Yoga studio. She has 10 years experience in health promotion in New Zealand and Australia including management and promotion of national chronic disease prevention programs. She now helps people one on one with their wellbeing through yoga teaching, personal training, workplace yoga and wellbeing workshops.
Qualifications include: Certified Yoga Teacher Santosha Yoga Institute, Registered Australian Yoga Alliance 2017
Certificate in Advanced Personal Training, Fit College New Zealand, 2016
Bachelor of Science with Honours Public Health. University of Canterbury, New Zealand 2006
Bachelor of Arts Mass Communication and Psychology. University of Canterbury, New Zealand 2005