Breaking the Chains of Perfectionism: Embracing Imperfections for Deliberate Living
When we measure our lives by someone else’s idea of success, it’s like chasing a moving target. No matter what we achieve, there’s always someone who seems happier, more sorted, more richer, or more popular. This constant comparison makes it hard to feel good about ourselves. It just leaves us feeling unsatisfied.
By getting caught in this cycle, I am seeing a more relatable and pressing issue. This chase puts us into a relentless pursuit of perfectionism, which is seriously harming our mental health and well-being. From demanding parents to pressure at school or work, and even social media, we’re bombarded with messages that tell us we have to be perfect.
If you’re wondering if you’re a perfectionist, chances are you are. I too am a perfectionist, to a certain degree. Apart from coaching, I also help start-ups and small businesses create marketing assets. When I am designing, I feel an innate need for everything to be pixel-perfect. And I am constantly recognizing this tendency and trying to break it at critical points.
It’s hard to escape the feeling that we need to be flawless, and it can really mess with our heads. I can totally relate to that. We’re afraid of failing or being judged, so we push ourselves to be perfect, even when it’s not possible. We all grow up with expectations of getting good grades, attending an A-level college or university, getting onto a stable career path, raising a family, and buying a house amongst other things, but things start to go sideways when we infuse these expectations with an inordinate dose of perfectionism.
Sachin, my friend, was one such perfectionist. From a young age, he was groomed by his parents to be the epitome of success. They instilled in him the belief that only perfection in every aspect of life would lead to true happiness and fulfillment. He excelled in his studies, always topping his class and earning praise from his teachers. He was fiercely competitive and was always under immense pressure to outperform his peers.
I remember a time when I was in Grade VIII, and our unit test papers were being given out. Sachin was in a different division from me and had got all his subject papers and thus knew his overall marks. I, on the other hand, had one subject left. Sachin had already compared his marks with mine and had mentally calculated how much I would need to beat him to the first rank. I still remember the day when our teacher was handing out the paper, he was hysterically standing outside my classroom, waiting to hear how much I scored. His face crumpled and I could feel him clenching his jaws as he heard my marks. Knowing that I had beaten him by one mark, he moaned and mumbled his way back to his class.
After high school, he and I hardly remained in touch. He went on to attend a prestigious university in the US and after graduating landed a coveted job at a multinational corporation. It was only after fifteen years, that our paths crossed once again. I was in the US for a work assignment, when through a common friend, I happened to meet Sachin. As we spoke again, this time as adults, he revealed to me that despite his outward success, his personal and professional life suffered. He struggled to maintain meaningful relationships and balance his work-life commitments. He went on to tell me that as he climbed higher in his career, the pressure to be perfect only intensified. He started feeling depressed seeing that results were not coming the way he would have wanted. He was constantly comparing himself to his colleagues and felt a sense of inadequacy whenever he perceived someone else as being more successful or accomplished. With all this stress and pressure he had put on himself, his health began to deteriorate. With the support of his wife and daughter, he began to reevaluate his priorities and reconsider his definition of success. He eventually realized that he was trying to live up to an illusion that doesn’t exist. Even though it was hard for him, he gradually began to let go of his perfectionistic tendencies and started embracing his imperfections.
Katie Rasmussen, a researcher on perfectionism at West Virginia University asserts that perfectionism is a self-defeating way of moving through life. A research study done in the UK in 2019 by Thomas Curran and Andrew P. Hill suggests that perfectionists have an excessive need for others’ approval and often feel socially disconnected. The study also points out that perfectionism has significantly increased over the last thirty years.
Perfectionism is not the same as high standards
Many people believe that perfectionism is about setting high standards and often confuse it with excellence. But when you look deeper, the distinction becomes apparent. Research shows that people who display perfectionistic tendencies seem to do so for validation from other people, craving acceptance and love to feel good enough. In contrast, striving for excellence involves setting personal standards driven by internal motivation rather than external validation. It is more internally focused than externally and is largely focused on what matters to the individual. There is no damage to self-esteem, like that found in perfectionism. Perfectionism diminishes your effectiveness and damages your peace of mind while setting high standards for yourself upgrades everything you do in life.
Perfectionism fosters procrastination and fear, hindering progress, while striving for excellence and raising one’s own standards puts you on a journey of limitless improvement.
For over four hundred years, the Japanese have followed a practice called Kintsugi. It is an art form where broken pottery pieces are put together using precious metals such as gold, silver, or platinum. Rather than discarding broken crockery or trying to hide the damage, Kintsugi highlights the faults and flaws and honors the fragility and imperfections.
The Japanese practice of Kintsugi offers a powerful analogy. Rather than striving for unrealistic perfection, being terrified of making mistakes and failing, and consequently finding ourselves stressed, anxious, and desperately focused on not failing, adopting the Kintsugi mindset celebrates the wisdom gained from setbacks and acknowledges the potential for growth and resilience in every perceived flaw.
Perfectionism is a hidden epidemic that defeats our quest for deliberate living
The National Education Association describes this as an “epidemic,” the Association of Child Psychotherapists terms this a “silent catastrophe,” and the Royal College of Psychiatrists calls this a “crisis.” I witnessed this firsthand with my 12-year-old daughter. Through all her homework, projects, and interactions in the classroom, she constantly feels the need to be perfect. This pressure isn’t limited to high school students; it extends into professional environments as well. A study published in the Journal of Occupational Health Psychology in 2016 found that perfectionism correlates with higher levels of burnout and diminished job satisfaction among employees. Additionally, research from the American Psychological Association links perfectionism to increased stress, anxiety, depression, and even suicide risk, impacting individuals of all ages and demographics.
Considering this, I pose a question: Can you recall seeing a perfect rose? Or a perfect mountain? A perfect hug? A perfect meal? Despite nature’s embrace of imperfections, why do we burden ourselves with the pursuit of perfection?
