Success & Perfectionism: Myths Uncovered
Ela Crain on awareness and self-acceptance
In our current technological age, social media and advertisements permeate our everyday lives. Scrolling through Instagram, it’s easy to get the sense that everyone else is living a perfect life. Falsely candid images of perfect brunches, perfect parties, and perfect friends are carefully crafted to present idealized versions of ourselves to the world. When in reality perfect doesn’t exist, we feel a sense of loss and punish ourselves for not meeting the impossible standards we’ve set for ourselves.This, my friends, is the toxic world of perfectionism.
So, in an imperfect world, how do we cope with this cultural obsession with being perfect? Ela Crain, published writer, entrepreneur, and coach, has a few ideas.
As a recovering perfectionist herself, Ela offers workshops on the perils of perfectionism. By setting impossible goals, perfectionists self-sabotage themselves and undermine their potential, and Ela is working to address this with her teachings. But before she could help others, Ela first had to recognize and address perfectionism in herself.
Ela first encountered perfectionism while writing her novel, Montana Day. She says of the struggle, “I knew the beginning of the story, I knew the end of the story, and yet I was sitting down most days and not being able to write anything. It was driving me crazy because I was like, ‘What is it? It’s not writer’s block, it’s not that I ran out of ideas — there’s something else that is sabotaging me.” After consulting a professional from Jack Canfield’s team, coach Gary Reed, Ela could finally name it: perfectionism.
But even then, she was reluctant to accept it. “I was thinking, ‘I’m not a perfectionist enough’, like perfectionism was a good thing and I wasn’t enough of that.” Of course, that’s exactly what a true perfectionist would say.
What is perfectionism? “It’s an outlook,” Ela says. “Perfectionism is, at a very basic level, striving for the impossible — for becoming or being or acting or creating something perfect, which is not possible. But then, on a deeper level, it’s the feeling that whatever you do or you become, won’t be enough.”
“Perfectionism is really the way you perceive life and a feeling that whatever you do is not enough and whoever you are is not enough.”
This striving for perfection, the impossible gold standard, and inevitably failing, is something most of us have experienced. Whether in school, work, friendships or romances, setting impossible expectations leads to disastrous results. And while many might argue that perfectionists are simply struggling to be the best they can be, Ela points out that they are doing it in an unhealthy way.
“I’m a big fan of wanting to improve oneself, but I learned as I started to work on my perfectionistic traits that my wanting to improve myself was coming from an unhealthy root. I didn’t fully like myself, I thought I wasn’t good enough. And when you move from such an unhealthy place, you have this idealized self that you want to reach and you turn your back to your current self.”
Ela uses an example of a caterpillar that can’t wait to be a butterfly. If it rejects itself as a caterpillar, wishing it were already a butterfly, it will live as a dissatisfied caterpillar, constantly searching for more. This is how most of us live, but there’s an alternative. We would be happier if we could simply enjoy our time as a caterpillar and relish in our journey of becoming a butterfly. Ela suggests reframing your thoughts and saying, for example, “I’m excited about this journey. I’m enjoying who I am, I’m this caterpillar, but I’m also going to turn out to be a butterfly and that’s going to be fun too. I’m enjoying the land and the plants now and I’m going to enjoy the sky next, everything is fine. But when you are a perfectionist, you really function from a rejection of yourself.”
How do you know if you’re a perfectionist? Ela gives a few examples, such as expecting your first novel to be a bestseller or your first startup to create a monumental global impact. Perhaps you re-read your emails ten times before sending them or you constantly tell yourself you should be doing better. You might even look down on yourself for not being the next Steve Jobs after running your business for half a year. But are any of these standards you’re holding yourself to rational? No.
So how do we change? Ela explains, “You reject yourself–and as long as you reject yourself you can’t change yourself. Change begins with acceptance of what is there already.” In other words, the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence, but when you’re finally standing on that greener grass you will still be the same unhappy person, standing on greener grass. Until you’re willing to accept your own perfectly fine grass, you won’t be happy.
Acceptance is easier said than done, but Ela suggests that we need to reframe the way we think about ourselves. “The way I see it is perfectionism always includes this external look to yourself. So you look at yourself from the outside and you think you’re not enough–but enough for whom or what?” Instead of this external perspective, we should focus on the internal and change our outlook. Rather than comparing yourself to someone else, focus on striving for excellence that is measured by your own standards.
Ela explains that by changing your outlook, you will begin to feel more joy. “Things become easier. Things start to happen without you putting so much effort in it, simply because you are not fighting yourself in the background. So you save your energy and you can direct it to things that need to be done, rather than beating yourself up.”
Again, this is easier said than done, so Ela recommends a starting point. “The first step is to become aware–to understand what perfectionism is. For example, this all or nothing attitude. Do you have that? Do you come up with extremely high goals and want to achieve them by tomorrow morning? And if you can’t do that do you beat yourself up? Do you punish yourself more often than you reward yourself?” If the answer is yes, you have your work cut out for you, but don’t beat yourself up about it! Take a deep breath and keep reading…
Through understanding what perfectionism is, you can achieve awareness and begin to recognize the areas in your life where perfectionism is holding you back. Ela takes it baby-step by baby-step, saying, “See which areas of your life are contaminated–become aware of them–and as you kind of catch yourself repeating these patterns, just smile and let it go. Don’t beat yourself because you are beating yourself up. No! Do the opposite by saying, ‘Here I am, I’m hating myself again, because this was a stupid move.’ And just smile, and then let go. It will just loosen by itself.”
Of course we’re all anxious to make a change now–to find a cure and unlearn perfectionism today. Ela reminds us, however, that “it’s a practice. You’ve probably been practicing perfectionism all your life, so you can’t resolve it overnight.” Start with a few baby-steps and be kind to yourself. With understanding, awareness, and self-acceptance, things will be easier and you will be happier. Remember, “Just smile at yourself and let it go.”
This is the first article in a series exploring and debunking the myths of perfectionism with Ela Crain. To attend one of Ela’s workshops, book your spot here. You can learn more about Ela and her work on her website.
Erika Clugston is a freelance writer and artist based in Berlin. With sass and pizazz, Erika writes about art, culture, and all things Berlin related. She has degrees in Fine Art and English from Southwestern University and currently works as the Editorial Assistant for LOLA Magazine.
