How To Let Perfectionism Go

How are you in the process of getting things you want badly? Do you patiently wait out the journey? Or do you feel like you can’t get there fast enough to the point that you start feeling terrible about yourself for not having the results you want? Perfectionism is harming your sense of self-worth until you get the outcome you want, and most people are stuck doing this- in fact, there will always be perfectionist tendencies at every level in our growth. The more ambitious we become, the more a part of us wants to go faster and get the results ASAP! What’s important is that we 1) catch ourselves in perfectionism and then, 2) let it go so we can enjoy working toward our goals without dealing with feeling terrible for not having what we want yet. Feeling like a loser for not progressing “fast enough” is super discouraging and eventually causes us to give up if we don’t relax that part of ourselves because it gets stronger the longer we leave it unattended to. It’s like a little kid shouting to his mother who denies her kid permission to play the Xbox, “I want to play it now!!!” And then the kid just can’t control his anger and upset at not being able to get what he wants ASAP. What he’s dealing with is a tremendous sense of “I am not okay” without the Xbox. And that feeling of low self-esteem is so uncomfortable that he lashes out in anger and blames his mom for causing that feeling. What the child really needs to reach peace is to let that perfectionist attitude of needing to have exactly what he wants go. Without ever working on this, the child will always feel horrible when he doesn’t get what he wants. When people feel a compulsive need to get what they want, their experience is similar to this child’s. They, too, have a sense of “I’m not okay without what I want.” One area that I’m currently working on letting go is getting my ideal body image. I noticed recently that when I see myself in the mirror, I have thoughts of “still no progress? What the heck!?” And then, I just pity myself. However, there is a simple process for letting that go, but we have to be ready to because the short answer to healing ourselves from perfectionism is to prioritize our happiness above that which we want. And the ironic thing is, we think what we want will make us happy, but that’s the perfectionism talking. We don’t need what we want to be happy. We just need to be okay as we are without needing anything to be happy. Here are 3 Steps To Let Go Of Perfectionism 1) Admit it. We all know when we get too obsessed with getting the results we want because it feels bad, but we can start telling ourselves the false story that we feel bad only because we don’t have what we want. The longer we tell this story, the stronger it gets and the more we hurt ourselves for not having what we want. We lose touch with reality, lost and consumed in our desires, until we admit the truth- we are inflicting pain on ourselves because we want something really badly. The first step is to become aware of this so we can do something about it. The more we remind ourselves to be honest, the more we can see ourselves in perfectionism. 2) Upgrade your goal. Rather than getting attached to a distant goal like achieving the ideal body image, learning to sing or dance, or being able to bench press 50 more pounds, what’s a healthier goal? In order to answer this, we need to think in terms of consistent progress. What is achievable on a consistent basis? By finding a way to celebrate progress frequently, you get to bypass the “All or Nothing” approach that either you achieve your goals, or you feel bad until you do. For getting the ideal body image, you could shift your goal to feeling healthy and energetic in your body. This doesn’t mean you have to change your goals, you keep them if you want, and you just upgrade them. So you would still progress toward your ideal body image, but you do it to feel healthier and more energetic which occurs every time you workout. In other words, you find a helpful why for getting your ideal body- to feel better in your body. As long as you are achieving that, you know you are making progress and can feel great about that. So, how can you upgrade the goals you’ve become too attached too? 3) Feel it to heal it. This is about finding the perfectionistic energy within your body and feeling into it to let it go. Every emotional pain we have is energy we are producing. That means we can shift our energy. Just like the kid example of freaking out for not getting to play with his Xbox ASAP, we have that energy in our bodies when we get impatient with our results. And just like the kid could use someone like his mother to help him let his attachment to the Xbox go to heal, we need to give our perfectionistic energy love and attention to let it go. So, instead of ignoring that part of ourselves in pursuit of our goals, to love it, we gotta embrace that uncomfortable feelingof, “I’m not okay” without that which we want really badly. If this is hard to do, one great way to get to feeling your feelings is to journal about your experience.Just set a timer for 10 minutes and write about your inner experience with hurting over not progressing fast enough toward your goals. If you feel defeated by a sense of hopelessness for having gone so long without having what you ultimately want like your ideal body image, don’t give up unless you really want to. If you’d prefer that you have what you want, apply the steps above and you’ll stop feeling so weighed down from not already being where you want to be in your life. Instead, you can find joy on your journey toward realizing your desires. The point is to prioritize your happiness above the actual acquiring of your goals. Life isn’t about getting goals, it’s about internal transformation and growth. As long as you focus on that, you can experience the constant joy from true progress rather than not seeing any wins in your life until you get that goal- which, by the way is only momentary. How long in duration is the moment you accomplish your goal? An instant. Once you get it, yay! You celebrate it. But, then it’s over. You already reached your goal. So what next? If you haven’t worked on letting perfectionism go, you jump to something else to obsess over and get attached to. Take action today and let go of perfectionism where you notice it! Until we speak again, you were born to be real, not to be perfect. So go out there and be who you are. I’ll talk to you soon. 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