Archives: You Don’t Need to Stop Being a Perfectionist

What if perfection wasn’t the issue, but rather perception? 

Oh perfectionism, the striving, pushing through, driving forward part of us that can often actually leave us feeling more stuck, confined, and controlled than ever (if you know you know). And so - as we heal, sometimes perfection becomes the enemy, this feared thing that could lead us back down that familiar hole. 

And yet, a walk in the woods, an attention to the animals, will quickly show us the perfection of nature. The structures, systems, and communications seen and unseen that just work in perfect harmony. Without force, but not without pressure or challenge. Stress in some instances, has actually fostered great creativity and beauty. Perfection. With the extinction of dinosaurs and a massive change of the planet as it was known, came such beauty in deciduous trees, plant life, and a diversity of animals. New forms and ways of life, a world that may likely have been inconceivable until it happened. 

So how could this apply to us also? What if it isn’t ‘practice makes perfect’, rather perfect is already in the practice. What if perfection was more of an allowing, maybe even a surrender as opposed to such a tightly held end result? What if trying to control that which feels as though it is controlling us actually keeps us stuck in the very same loop? What if it’s all about a shift in effort and perception that opens a possibility beyond what we could have ever imagined?