Escaping the “Perfect” Trap: How to Find Freedom and Fulfillment

The right lure.

“If I’m good, nobody can ever criticize me.” 

Which isn’t true; we’ll nonetheless hear issues we don’t need to hear. 

And after we hear issues we don’t need to hear, it’s as a result of we didn’t do one thing adequate.

We now have to attempt more durable.

Deeper and deeper into the perfectionism jail we go. 

We develop fearful of being seen and heard and conceal behind the facade we consider will defend us. We don’t dare be seen as something “lower than.” 

We grow to be fearful of placing something out into the world, initiatives left undone or in a perpetual state of being labored on as a result of they’re not fairly “there.”

We reside a life that’s not our personal; it belongs to the beliefs of what it must be, and we watch helplessly as our world and our place in it diminishes. 

We conceal within the open. 

However we double down our efforts as a result of it’s started working; striving for perfection is an effective factor, proper?

Nobody can fault us for not ending initiatives as a result of we’re aiming for a “worthwhile” aim. 

We reside half an existence, pretending it’s entire and struggling within the disparity.

I’m utilizing “we,” however actually, this was my expertise with perfectionism, one thing I nonetheless wrestle with, and I do know I’m not alone. 

“Perfectionism is a twenty-ton shield we lug around thinking it will protect us when, in fact, it’s the thing that’s really preventing us from taking flight.” — Brené Brown

I used to be imprisoned by perfectionism since concerning the age of 6 or 7. 

If I didn’t rating 100 on each take a look at, I wasn’t adequate or worthy. So started my journey into the jail of perfectionism. 

I used to be fortunate; going to federal jail and basically shedding every thing destroyed the phantasm of perfectionism and taught me about freedom. 

The facade I’d labored so exhausting to manufacture was decimated, and I wanted to start out from scratch.

I didn’t need to recreate what I’d destroyed, even when the consolation of the identified known as to me. 

I longed to be free, not solely from the bodily boundaries of jail however from my psychological prisons, perfectionism being certainly one of them.

An offshoot of unworthiness, believing I wasn’t sufficient, and my worry of being seen and heard for who I’m. 

Actually, I don’t know the way I’d have damaged free from perfectionism with out going to jail. 

I don’t know if I’d have had the notice and braveness to depart the consolation of the cell.

I do know this, although: we don’t have to destroy our lives to interrupt free, nor do I counsel it.

Wanting again on the decade of rebuilding and reinventing my life, there have been tumblers to open the mix lock on my self-imposed jail cell.

I share them right here, hoping they assist somebody stroll out of their perfectionism jail cell. 

Mission:

I had an amazing need to present which means to the struggling my selections created, and one of many methods I knew to do this was to share my story. 

My aim in sharing my story was to assist one individual. That’s all I wished, and it’s been my gas for the previous decade. 

An individual in ache doesn’t care if a sentence is crafted completely; they only don’t need to be in ache anymore. 

Perfection doesn’t assist them; honesty, rawness, and vulnerability do. 

And the trail to those is paved with sharing errors and horrible selections, the antithesis of perfection. 

Serving a mission greater than myself meant embracing errors. 

It additionally remodeled right into a need to make extra errors; if I wasn’t making errors, I wasn’t going far sufficient.

Ending Self-Flagellation/Punishment:

I’d persistently deny myself small acts of pleasure (for instance – watching TV in jail).

Each as a result of I believed I wasn’t worthy of them and since I’d fallen in need of my private expectations of perfection – typically unattainable expectations. 

Which creates a depraved cycle. 

The second I gave myself permission to get pleasure from small acts like watching TV in jail, I demonstrated nice compassion for myself, compassion that was granted in lieu of perfectionism. 

It was granted merely for me being me; I didn’t must be good to really feel good. 

Enlargement over Contraction:

We are able to’t absolutely perceive one thing till we expertise its reverse. 

Jail allowed me to know freedom.

I used to consider that perfectionism would grant me freedom – nobody can contact me if I’m good. 

I’d be free from all adverse judgment.

All the alternatives I made to create what I believed was the liberty I sought have been fear-based. 

Worry is a double-edged sword. 

Once I keep away from the sharp edge, I shrink my world. 

Once I transfer towards the sharp edge, I increase my world. 

I nonetheless keep away from the sting, capitulate, and make fear-based selections as a result of I’m human.

But when I degrade myself for doing so, I’m nonetheless a prisoner of perfectionism.

I select growth. 

Perfectionism is an insidious belief that will slowly shrink and decimate our lives. The primary key to unlocking the cell door is hidden in plain sight.

Our need and want for perfection is a perception, not the reality. 

After we drop the assumption and function from our reality, we modify the course of our lives.