I Declare War On Perfectionism

I couldn't understand why I was putting off writing this first post. I have been so desperate to get my blog up and running and there have been many times when I have had long and perfectly crafted posts floating through my head with nowhere to go and I have had to frustratingly allow them to slip away into the ether of my brain. So why, now that it’s all ready and waiting to be written on, was I dragging my heels so much?

And then I remembered something I was told in counselling “You know what your problem is? You’re a perfectionist.” I had to look behind me to see if she was talking to the potted fern behind me because nothing I ever do is perfect. I am constantly feeling like I come up short next to others. My house is always a mess, my kids are always sticky and never ironed, my life (at that time especially) was so far from perfect you could describe it as the anti-perfect. She went on to explain how my self critical nature and disorganised life is a common symptom of the perfectionist, because perfectionists would often rather do nothing at all than risk doing something sub standard. Suddenly the fact that I never bothered cleaning my ugly sixties kitchen made sense. Of course I don’t clean it. Badly applied woodchip wallpaper, disintegrating cupboards and chipped lino would never be the perfect vision of kitsch I had imaged when I bought the house. I could feel my chest puff out with pride. Me! A perfectionist! And there was me going through life thinking I was all rubbish and stuff. Well fancy that.

Now I am aware of it, there is evidence of my perfectionism all around me. My newly painted walls are entirely barren, great expanses of bare paintwork, void of any artistic creation. This is not because I don’t have the frames I need, or the bulging folder marked “art ideas” in my head (and on my Pinterest) just waiting for me to get out the PVA and go nuts, it’s because I’m scared that whatever I create won’t live up to the perfect ideas I have in my head. I know what I want things to look like, what if it doesn't turn out like that?

I think most of us are guilty of perfectionism on some level. We all have an idea of what our perfect looks like. Especially when it comes to the big hitters like career/partner/body. But the trouble is, while we’re all sitting around waiting for our perfect to plop into our inbox/ride up on a white horse/manifest itself out of a packet of Haribo, we don’t realise that true happiness is found in the flaws.

I recently redecorated my house from top to bottom. It took me two and a half months (which I am quite proud of given that I did it virtually single handedly and with two kids in tow). Are my walls perfectly flat? No. Is my cutting in worthy of a professional? Nope. But the fact that it’s all done, and done by me, means that I don’t care whether or not it’s perfect, I really don’t. Just that I did it myself, and has given my house a fresh start is enough for me. The drips in my woodwork remind me how far I have come, and I love every single one of them. If it was all perfect maybe I would be just as happy with it, but then again where would be the evidence of me? All those little blobby bits are my marks on the place. They make it truly mine.

If I hadn’t just accepted the fact that it wasn’t going to be perfect I would never have even started doing up my house, let alone finished it. And it’s time I applied that “just do it” attitude to the rest of my life before perfection paralysis really sets in.

Everyone’s idea of perfect is different. For me, the perfect Malteser is lumpy and bumpy with a big nipple of chocolate on the side, one which has narrowly missed the eye of a quality controller whose job it is to weed out anything less than a perfectly round and shiny specimen (now, that would be a great job). There is so much more pleasure in the odd misshapen Malteser than something blemish free, but I don’t think the makers of Maltesers know that.

Maybe my perfectionism is why I have never pursued any kind of “proper” career, I have great business ideas pouring out of my over active mind every hour of the day, and regularly scour the job listings and find things that on the surface at least, seem “perfect”. But what if, in practice, my business idea flops or I wake up every day dreading going to the office to face a sleazy boss? And what if the perfect career gets in the way of being a perfect mother?

And maybe my perfectionism is what is keeping me single. What if I don’t find my perfect mix of good looks/intellectually challenging/adoring of me but puts me in my place/puts the loo seat down/romantic introduction story (not meeting up on a drunken night out/free dating site/support group for the neurotic). Or what if I find all those things, and it won’t be what I wanted after all (this has happened to me before).

But what if, just maybe, holding out for my perfect is preventing me from finding my happy?

Perfectionism isn’t something to be proud of, or something to strive towards. We should all be running screaming from perfectionism, declare a war on it and banish it from our lives. Because ultimately, it’s not perfection we want, or need, it’s the flaws that make life interesting, happy and fun. Perfection does not breed happiness, perfection breeds worry and stress and sometimes an excuse to do nothing at all and remain in a state of misery. Anti perfection is what we need, revel in the blemishes, celebrate the defects, and that is how we will find our true happy.

Life is like a box of Maltesers, flawed tastes so much better than perfect. But old habits die hard, and as my finger hovers over the “post” button I am wracked with the old perfectionism paralysis; sweaty palms, self criticism and that feeling of just not being good enough. Sod it, what’s the worst that can happen, right?