The Pursuit of Perfection

                             I will fall, I will fail but I will never give up.

It’s often said that, “Best is not just the superlative but the Enemy of Good.” We all yearn to attain perfectionism in our own realms of personal, professional, emotional and social potpourris but hardly we stop and think how strongly we are tethered to get attacked and injured by this double-edged sword that we fail to notice and mitigate the negatives of perfectionism and keep striving to meet hopelessly unrealistic standards. A positive and healthy understanding of perfectionism can propel us towards achieving our goals but there’s a big chasm between enjoying the journey towards perfectionism and the destination. To fill this gap one needs the key to find balance and to relax into a place where good enough becomes the ‘new perfect’. Getting out of this shackle can make you more adept at meeting the challenges and free up more time to work on the changes needed to bring work and life into better alignment.

The Pressure of Performance:

Many perfectionists live in the tendencies that are rooted in fear and insecurity as they are constantly under performance pressure. They worry never to lose their meticulousness and well organized systems of working and often become circumspect about channelizing their strengths just to cling to their perfectionism. In order to maintain the performance level often indulge into incredibly time consuming details and efforts which is at times detrimental to your health and mental well being. A perfectionist toils in search of this amorphous goal of perfection and repetitively mulls over a thought or a problem without ever coming to a resolution. It results into anxiety and stress. In pursuit of giving the best they start ruminate and tend to become less-forgiving of them.

The Penchant of Perfectionism:

Ironically we dwell in a world that idolizes perfectionism. From a very young age our parents, teachers, coaches and peers push us to be high achievers but they fail to teach us the balance. We sweat and exert ourselves relentlessly to fulfill our desire of being the best which debilitates our capabilility of understanding ‘what is enough?’ and ‘where to pull back?’ Extensive e research has found the psychology of perfectionism to be rather complex. Perfectionists strive to produce flawless work, and maintain higher level of motivation and expertise than non-perfectionists. However, they are more likely to set inflexible and excessively high standards, to evaluate their behaviour overly critically, to hold on an all-or-nothing mindset about their performance. They believe that their work is either perfect or a failure. So, to a certain level perfectionism is beneficial but not constructive always.

Start Loving your Imperfections:

“To err is to human,” we know that without making mistakes we can’t learn and accomplish anything. If we know and accept the idea of being the authentic version of ourselves, we will start loving our efforts and learning from our mistakes derives deep satisfaction from within. It’s a lot easier to tolerate making mistakes and having flaws if we know how to curb rumination, if excessive thinking is just going in circles without helping to find a solution, it will definitely put us into a bad mood, so let it go.

Enriching Read: Where Theres Will Theres Way

How to Change this Attitude:

The most popular approach to mitigate the lows and negatives of perfectionism is to plan how you can improve by 1%. Have smaller goals so that you’ll start to see that there are easier ways to improve than what you’re imagining. Think positive about your past and reflect on times when you had tried something new. It will fill you with exultation despite your failure in that attempt. This helps you “learn from your experiences”.

Sometimes try to bring distractions to your routine life as they can break the monotony and the consistent patterns which you have set for yourself. Once you begin working on moderating your perfectionist tendencies, a weekly review is recommenced through which you can reflect on your progress and see the change where your perfectionism has a positive impact and where it does not have. This way you will redirect yourself to build a more sensible and practical perfectionism in yourself. Calibrate your standards and understand what you are writing or saying doesn’t have to be the final word; it just has to contribute something useful. Create a checklist that ensures you follow a process with measurable targets and make yourself ‘Perfect’ to harness the positives of perfectionism.

Let me continue to stride on my journey towards perfection and excellence, I will fall, I will fail but I will never give up.

                                                                                                                       -Rachna Babel