Be Only You

If you are like me,  you grew up in the generation of millennials and not far behind Gen X, where neoliberalism was in full swing forcing us to be more competitive with our neighbours and become more and more individualistic. An era of drawing inside the lines within your copy book with perfect joint writing, line after line in the hope of graduating from pencil to pen and by graduating I mean some subjective measure defined by a middle-aged teacher. Writing in pen was akin to a huge trophy for reaching the heights of perfect, pencil writing and a means to smear your perfectionism in the face of your peers. I remember this distinctly at the age of 5 or 6 leaving a lasting impression that I must succeed and perfect my writing to achieve this success. All for what? All I write down now is for myself (journal, diary etc) and everything else is in digital text form. 

These tendencies continue on in various forms throughout your young adult life e.g. exams, team sports and even into adulthood of getting the best college degree, job, partner, house etc. No one forces you to strive for this social perfection but yet most of us (including myself) find ourselves here and potentially stay there for the rest of our lives. You have the power to decide whether to walk into this perfectionistic trap and more importantly decide whether you want to stay here.

Perfectionism not the problem it’s the attachment of our self worth

Teal Swan

WE ARE PERFECTLY IMPERFECT BY DESIGN

Recently, a fellow student had a beautiful way of describing one’s flaws. He described your faults as the colour pallet of your life and how you use these throughout your life, to paint all the different aspects. I personally don’t like using the term of faults or flaws because it is all subjective. Our characteristics are just who we are, including our emotions. Although our identities are not these and read more in my other musings of You Are Not Your Emotions if you care to learn more. 

Perfectionism is a false promise of utopia

Aoife Murphy (me)

PUSH PASS RESISTANCE TO FIND THE MEANING

Perfectionism can come in all various forms and masks. You hear that voice in your head like “ you should” or “you must” do or say this.  All of these are heavily tied up in perfectionism. While you may feel like this form of self-flagellation is your express seat to utopia, you are very sadly mistaken.  

Whenever you feel this sense of discomfort or pain, try to embrace these feelings with curiosity of the self. Ask why am I reacting so intensely to these events? Why am I seeking validation from this person, this performance review at work or from my highly critical parent? Or am I comparing myself to strangers on the internet again and using it as a battering ram to chip away at my self-esteem? Keeping digging to find the root of what is driving this behaviour. More often than not, it will lead you back to some early childhood experiences that suggested that your perfect behaviour and conformity was a requirement for your validation as a good child.

MOST IMPORTANTLY LEARN TO LOVE & ACCEPT YOURSELF, ABOVE ALL ELSE

We are programmed to find acceptance and love from others as we evolved through bands and tribes. Although somewhere along this evolutionary train, we over indexed on that need and forgot about firstly, cultivating this acceptance for ourselves. Have you ever met someone with an aura of positive and light energy of calmness and contentment? Even being in their presence for a few minutes makes you immediately feel so at ease? There isn’t any magic potion or genetic make-up, these peoples simply prioritise self-acceptance (and compassion) over anything else. In other words, they just own it!

This isn’t an easy thing to do and before you can do this effectively you must learn to forgive yourself. Read more in The Power of Forgiveness.

Perfectionism is a form of self abuse, an impossible standard that you use to define your self-worth on the basis of subjective external standards. Ever find yourself comparing your life to a celebrity? You think all their fame and fortune  makes them feel life’s roller coaster of emotions and challenges even less? You are very wrong my friend because we are all in this human experience together and the universal doesn’t differentiate between bank balances. 

In reality, nothing can be defined as perfect, it’s a detrimental concept that we picked up somewhere along our early adult lives.  We are all subjective beings in this world with a hell of a lot of grey. Yes you can argue that a machine will mark your multiple choice exam right or wrong. Although I would say a subjective human made a decision on how to programme what were the right and wrong answers. We see it all the time when politicians debate and vote on what they deem the right thing is to do or even in the boxing ring where the three judges, rarely allocate the same score across players.

So do yourself a favour and work on breaking this habitual mindset of perfectionism. Actively seek ways to retrain the brain by colouring outside the lines, mess up that coffee table or library or simply park your car at an angle. It may annoy you at first with the burning desire to perfect and straighten up. When this rises up through your core, remind yourself that there is no such thing as perfect and spare a sympathetic thought for those around you, who are still blinded by it all (they will come around eventually).

Thank you for reading and if you haven’t already,  subscribe below to receive my weekly blog straight to your inbox and receive printable gratitude and values exercises! Please also forward this to anyone else you think might be interested

Much love ♥

Disclaimer: I am not a licensed therapist, these opinions are my own views and thoughts. I strongly encourage you to work with your healthcare practitioner and/or therapist if any of these views have had a negative impact on you.