Perfection. It’s something towards many of us strive and yet, it is something that remains forever unattainable. While many of us might believe that we have grasped perfection in our hands, the moment is almost always fleeting and eventually, we are forced to return to our often incredible but rarely flawless realities. How great is “perfect”, though? While it is something that you might think about on a daily basis, the concept of perfectionism is elusive and unclear and often, you might simply strive for an ideal that doesn’t exist. What you have, in most cases, is already enough. Still not sure which way to go? Here’s why perfect isn’t actually “perfect”.
- Perfect Isn’t Liberating
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When you strive too much to attain perfection, you build yourself into a corner. Maintaining rigid rules and regulations can prevent you from using the creative part of your brain and as a result, you can miss out on a great deal of magic. Your perfectionist habits can hold you hostage in your own body, forcing you to live out a version of your life that isn’t really realistic. When you let go of perfectionism as an ideal, you allow yourself the freedom to follow your gut and move with your instincts. Letting go of being perfect is the first step towards finding out who you really are.
- Perfect Doesn’t Let You Grow
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Want to know why noone is really perfect? Perfection stunts your development and after you achieve it, there’s simply nowhere else for you to go. When you focus too much on being perfect, you mark your achievements as either successes or failures, without noticing the shades of gray that might lie in between. In reality, there is a great deal that you can learn from every scenario in which you find yourself, no matter how successful or unsuccessful it might have been. Stop painting everything with the perfectionist brush and start to think about how you acted in each step along the way. Once you do so, you will be able to modify your behaviour and keep on learning.
- Perfect Doesn’t Consider The Process
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Looking at life with a perfectionist gaze restricts many things that you might do. When you’re trying to be right, you might only consider the end result of a process, overlooking the important steps that come in between. The journey is perhaps the most important part of any project and what you learn along the way can teach you any number of lessons to use the next time you’re set to work. Try taking every step in your stride. You never know what you will pick up along the way.
- Perfect Doesn’t Let You Shine
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Perfect is a lot less interesting than you might have believed. When you fail to make mistakes, you follow a status quo that can be stifling to who you really are. Following specific rules is more likely to make you more cautious and less creative when you’re working. Suppressing the freer parts of yourself might stop you from making potential mistakes but it also prevents the best parts of yourself shine through. Your faults and quirks make you who you are, so don’t be afraid to let them show.
- Perfect Increases Your Anxiety
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The more that you strive for perfectionism, the more anxious that you’re likely to be. The pressure that comes with doing everything the right way, every time, can be hugely crippling over time and eventually, it can start to have a serious effect on your wellbeing. At some point or another you’re going to go wrong, and that’s really ok. Making mistakes doesn’t define you; it is who you bounce back from them that shows the world who you really are.
