Perfectionism. It the enemy of creativity, productivity, and, well, sanity. It is a loop obsessive, debilitating closed system that causes you to get stuck in the details of what you are writing or painting or making and to lose sight of the whole. But you don even have to be creating anything to be crippled by perfectionism. It can also frustrate your efforts as a mom, a wife, a friend, and a human being. Because no one and no thing is perfect in this blemished world of ours.
I tackle this adversary every day. And although my inner perfectionist clearly has hold of my brain many days, I do think I am handcuffed less often by the fear of messing up than I used to be. Here are 10 techniques I use to break out of the prison of perfectionism in order to live and create as freely as I can in an imperfect world.
Don make life any more difficult than it already is. Most perfectionists are extremely competitive because being perfect means being THE BEST at, well, EVERYTHING. So choose your friends and your groups wisely. For example, some professional organizations clubs, publishing groups be extremely supportive. But some can be horribly competitive. And as a perfectionist, you don need folks feeding you the very message you are trying to forget: are nothing without total success and if you don get there, I will! Do this: check your heart rate before one of these meetings, and just after. If it up ten beats or more, don go back!
Of course you can avoid all competitive situations. Which is why you need to make some rules. For example, I can now gauge when I going through a period of insecurity when I feel like I need to be the best at something in order to feel okay about myself. During these periods, I don check out Beliefnet homepage where it lists popular blogs, e mailed posts, popular features, because if I don find my name somewhere in there, I mope around the house with that tight knot of disgust and angst in my stomach. Why torture myself? So here my rule: I can only visit the homepage on the days when I don feel like my popularity as a blogger is the definitive statement on who I am as a person. The result? I haven been to the homepage in months!
Unrealistic expectations are perfectionism trophy wife. Think about it. They always show up as a pair. So I try my best to distinguish realistic expectations from unrealistic ones. I list them all on a sheet of paper or (on a good day) in my head and then revise them about 2,035 times during the day. Under expectations are cataloged things like this: a New York Times bestseller in my half hour of free time in the evening, homeroom mom to 31 kids and chaperoning every field trip, and for a triathlon with a busted hip. Under expectations, I index things like: 30 hours of good work in 30 hours of working time, to David class and having lunch with him once a month instead of being homeroom mom, and the triathlon, but continuing to work out four times a week to keep the brain and body happy. Recording the different possibilities of actions I can take to inch toward my broad goals (being a good mom, an adequate blogger, and a healthy person) can be extremely liberating.
4. Return cheap fake oakleys to your exodus moment.
Awhile back, a Beliefnet editor asked some of the bloggers to describe our moments, when we were freed from fear and crossed the Red Sea of anxiety into a land of peace. I had a few such moments. One was during my junior year in college, the one time I relapsed and got drunk after three years of sobriety. I stood quietly in the gazebo right outside Our Lady of Loretta Church, where Eric and I married four years later. I told God to take my addiction, to take it for good, because I could no longer carry its weight. I remember lifting my hands to the sky as I looked down at the St. Joseph river, and I felt totally at peace.
The truth learned in all exodus moments is this: None of that stuff responsible for spinning us in a tissy matters. None of it is important. Just as Henri Nouwen explains:
Somewhere deep in our hearts we already know that success, fame, influence, power, and money do not give us the inner joy and peace we crave. Somewhere we can even sense a certain envy of those who have shed all false ambitions. Yes, somewhere we can even fake oakleys outlet get a taste of that mysterious joy in the smile of those who have nothing to lose.
This is counter intuitive for most perfectionists. But I can guarantee that you get good results if you try it. Because every time I have, with great reservation, flashed my imperfections and become vulnerable before my Beyond Blue readers whining, screaming either in a post or on a video response is amazing. some say to me, are real. You feel that way too! So I guess I shouldn beat myself up for similar emotions. Whenever cheap oakley sunglasses I follow the advice of my wise editor, Holly write from where I am, not from where I want to be readers don recoil in disgust. They come closer.
Alright, celebrate is an awfully strong word. Start, then, with accept your mistakes. But I do think each big blunder deserves a round of toasts. Because almost all of them teach us precious, rare lessons that can be acquired by success. Nope, the embarrassment, humiliation, fake oakley sunglasses self disgust all those are tools with which to unearth the gold. Just like Leonard Cohen writes in his song, that a friend of mine tapes to his computer as a reminder to ignore the perfectionist in him:
Ring the bells that still can ring,
Forget your perfect offering.
There is a crack in everything,
That how fake oakleys the light gets in.
Perfectionists are color blind. They see the world in black and white. Example: either I am the best blogger in the entire blogosphere or I should throw my iMac into the Chesapeake Bay and become a water taxi driver (they do have a pretty cool job). Either I am the most involved mom in David school or I am a slacker parent who should let a more capable mom adopt her son. Does this kind of thinking sound familiar? In order to get a pair of glasses on our inner perfectionist, then, we have to add a few hues to every relationship, event, and goal: we have to become a tad more tolerant of life messiness, unresolved issues, and complicated situations that can be neatly boxed up. oakleys outlet Seeing in color is realizing that even though a certain solution to a problem worked well yesterday, it might not be right for today.
Procrastination is a symptom of perfectionism. Because many of us are so petrified of bloopers that we can begin the project. For a year or so I procrastinated writing my memoir. In fact, I procrastinated by reading Dr. David Burn chapter on procrastination in his Days to Self Esteem, I couldn write a bloody word until he set me straight. Burns explains: of the secrets of people who are highly productive is that they rarely try to tackle a difficult job all at once. Instead, they break the task down into its smallest component parts and do one small step a day. an exercise in that chapter, Dr. Burns suggests you list a few steps. For example, my first chore didn involve sitting down at my computer. I first had to find and organize all the post its regarding this project that I had stashed away in drawers and coat pockets. Then he advises you to commit to a specific time that you will get started on the job. Third, he prompts you to record the problems that you anticipate at that time. I wrote: overwhelmed, hearing the negative voices in my head that say I can do it, brain farts, and cognitive fatigue. Finally, Burns encourages you to arrive at some solutions to the potential distractions. I wrote: it despite what the voices say. Be yourself.
In her book Perfect, Anna Quindlen explains that being perfect is cheap and easy: all it really requires of you, mainly, is to read the zeitgeist of wherever and whenever you happen to be and to assume the masks necessary to be the best at whatever the zeitgeist dictates or requires. much more challenging task, she asserts, is becoming yourself. replica oakleys cheap Because important, or meaningful, or beautiful, or interesting, or great, ever came out of imitations. I concur.
Redemption is an odd thing. Because identifying the broken places in your heart and in your life can be one of the scariest exercises you ever do, and yet only then can you recognize the grace that comes buried with every hole. If the journey to the Black Hole of despair and back has taught me anything, it this: everything is made whole in time if you can just hang on to the faith, hope, and love in the people and places around you long enough fake oakleys to see the sun rise yourself. Absolutely nothing is forsaken, not even those relationships and memories and persons that you think are lost forever. All things are made right in time. So you don always have to get it right on the first try.