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Continue ShoppingThe Pursuit of Perfection
The Pursuit of Perfection
Author - Kristy Kaye
SO you have the ‘after lockdown blues’ trying to make sense of it; where nothing much may have been achieved except knowing people who were very sick or mourning the passing of friends, loved ones, time or opportunities.
How are you going with all this change? Has life changed much for you? Are you trying to make sense of it? Is all this change disrupting your view of how your life is meant to be?
Regardless of where you have hung your hat in these changing times, chances are you have, at some point, had a lot of time on your hands to mull life and maybe empty out some old theories and allow some new ideas to make their presentations.
There is one such underlining concept of life that you have probably considered, and even shaken out its contemptuous nature but not really given it the quality of time it deserves. Let’s consider a concept that may make us live in the blues:
The Striving For Perfection
Not surprisingly, perfectionists load themselves up so heavily, with such high expectations, that they often become overwhelmed by the position they’ve put themselves in. You don’t have any …right? Or maybe some you have not thought about!
What are our concepts of perfection?
- A perfect house
- A perfect life
- Perfect health
- The perfect body
- A perfect motor vehicle
- Perfect children
- Perfect relatives
- A perfect job
- Perfect parents
Perfection is one little word that can bring up all kinds of dismay just by talking about it. Let’s find out how it tortures us and impacts on our life negatively.
You put more pressure on yourself than anyone else every would. You expect to be perfect at everything you do, and if you’re not, you beat yourself up about it and get angry or distressed. Worse still, you may lay your high expectations on others, and become highly critical of their efforts.
This one is a common sign of perfectionism as perfectionists tend to overload themselves with work, responsibilities and commitments. It is part of unrealistic expectations. You keep adding tasks to your list (sometimes because you feel others won’t do them as well as you) but still expect to juggle everything well and deliver a perfect outcome.
Perfectionists don’t like to say no. In your strive to be perfect you can forsake your own needs for those of others. Being loyal to their path instead of your own, putting yourself last and trying to be everything to everyone. You know you can help, you know you do it well, but if it is not in your best interests and part of your purpose, then you not demonstrating healthy self-loyalty.
Perfectionists can take an all-or-nothing approach. If they take on a task, they want to do it well, be seen to be capable, be in complete control and do it the quickest way possible that sometimes you can lose what is best and healthy for yourself. For example the link between perfectionism and eating disorders is well established (Google will provide you with a range of expert studies). It is not only with eating disorders though, it might be work, exercise, cleanliness, diet, hobbies – or anything that starts off well intentioned but ends up becoming all-consuming and a damaging obsession.
All of the above can lead to a sense of being overwhelmed. This can lead to feelings of anxiety or paralysis.
Interesting isn’t it. The strive for perfection can lead to procrastination. The drive to be seen well, be on time, to achieve – all healthy pursuits. But when it is underpinned by perfection and you pressuring yourself to perform at such a high standard, starting to feel overwhelmed, you can start to avoid doing things. You’ll make excuses. The pressure to do the task perfectly holds you back from doing it at all, or at least until the point when you have no choice but to do it.
How much does ‘Perfection’ shake your stability?
Everything is perfect until it is not.
So perhaps we have the wrong interpretation of the word. Perhaps nothing is perfect unless we make it so.
To do that we have to begin by acknowledging that we are perfect in our life with our children learning and growing as we were meant to, on Planet earth and the opportunities that it opens for us. If you were given some tools to make a boat but didn’t have timber, fibre glass or metal but your boat still floated, would it be perfect?
Of course it would be! You conquered an amazing task of making an ingenious boat to float without the normal resources. Indigenous people have been doing it for years, we maybe just did not notice it.
Inherited Expectations
To property evaluate: when we think of perfection, whose eyes and ears are we looking and hearing through? Whose opinions have we taken as a yardstick? Therein is the problem – we have that other controversial word “expectations”. And they did not begin as ours we inherited them.
We are each of us unique so what we make, say, paint, develop is always going to be unique unless we insist on following someone else’s plan. Where’s the fun in that?
If you were a child and given to create a life for yourself so that you were learning and growing (forget about the perfect parents – that’s a myth) you might believe it to be a pretty open-ended opportunity. But in reality, that is what happened. You were given an opportunity which is all that it is.
A lifetime is an opportunity. You may have parents who think you are anything but clever, who believe you have missed following their counsel so now you will be a failure. But the truth is they have in these cases missed the truth.
What have you done to yourself because you believed you were failing?
Did you drink too much alcohol? Take drugs prescription or other? Live recklessly?
Why do that because someone else thinks you are not perfect?
No one knows your previous lifetimes, what will heal your soul this lifetime, what you have come to learn and maters, what your path and purpose is. Your experiences are unique to you. Your personality is unique to you. Your evolution is unique to you.
If you think of yourself having bigger picture parents some think of as God, or fate, or force, surely you answer to that entity who in some way had control over your fate. You definitely have angels that answer to someone. That God force that gives us our existence lives within us, so why we diminish its importance?
None of us can do what we want when we want without consequences. There is that controlling force that only intervenes if we ask them. Don’t inhibit the opportunities that you have, but accept a bigger picture of your life and release all the joy and learnings stored in those experiences. We are all angels that have lost our way, and the sooner we find it, the easier our lives will become and the more affluent the energy feeding our souls will refine itself to.
Replace Perfection with Positivity
It’s an upside-down world but it only makes sense if you turn it up the right way.
So let us put it simply:
- Your parents aren’t your parents they are two souls who gave you a body.
- In doing that they did the best they knew how.
- The rest was up to you.
- At least one of them loved you or you would not be here.
- If they didn’t you had a relative who was a grandparent, aunt or uncle or someone who represented that kind of guardianship and love
- If they were not present to support you as your educational force you probably would have passed on early.
- Since you did have such a person, now is time for you to take back that control of your life by altering your opinions of yourself .
Your inner truth is a great driving force to carry you on your own unique life adventure, free of the restraints of perfectionism. It is crucial you take the driver’s seat with self-loyalty as your passenger.
You are beautiful, unique, immortal, talented, and a perfect love-being, what’s there to judge?
Forgive yourself and move on to greater things. Put positivity in your corner.
What can you do now?
- Take action – if your feelings are inspiring you to take action, check out our upcoming programs and one-to-one consultations at www.livingillumination.com
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Read other articles related to this topic:
1. How To Improve Your Mental Health- 7 Ways
2. 50 Life Affirming Affirmations
3. Dave Grohl - Perfection can be a Beast - Ian Mansell
#livingillumination #spiritualenlightenment #awakening #howtoawaken #spirituality #spiritualdevelopment #meditation #mentalhealth #affirmations #perfectionism
Janet Barron
Oct 23, 2023
I loved this article. It felt like it was written to me personally. I can feel overwhelmed easily and didn’t realise it’s because I want everything to be perfect and put so much pressure on myself to do this. Then I can’t move forward because I procrastinate on what the outcome will look like before I even begin it which keeps me stagnant in the now.