Do you have hidden perfectionism?
Do you know what perfectionism looks like?
Contrary to popular belief, perfectionism doesn’t always look like having an organized table, with stationary sorted by colors.
It can look like this:
You plan and over-plan, trying to make sure you have all grounds covered
You run through different scenarios in your mind to make sure you know how to respond
It takes hours or even days for you to move on from mistakes, feeling disappointed with yourself
You feel afraid of receiving improvement feedback as it shows that you are indeed not good enough
You spend a lot of time in your mind that you feel so drained and heavy, sometimes causing a headache
You get frustrated with yourself because you can’t seem to move forward, feeling stuck
Perfectionism can be invisible to others.
You may even reject the idea that you have a perfectionism tendency, because,
“What? Me, perfectionist? Impossible. Look around, I have so many things that can be improved, things to be done, my things are messy, how can I be a perfectionist?”
What you don’t realize is that many people with a perfectionist mindset do not have everything around them being prim and proper.
You spend so much time worrying, planning, and replaying things in your head that you feel too drained to get things done sometimes.
It drains your energy, jeopardizes your sleep and you worry.
You worry so, so much.
All these are coping mechanisms to avoid mistakes and give you a sense of security (which is often a FALSE sense of security)
And given you are so hard on yourself, you see all these imperfections, things that could be better, and start blaming yourself, further draining you.
So, yes, being a perfectionist doesn’t mean everything outside is perfect.
It can even slow you down.
Even if no one can see the turbulence, the conflict, and the weight inside of you, the impact it has on you is real.
Whether you label it as perfectionism or not, you are not alone in this.
The tendencies to overplan and overworried are rooted in fear of making mistakes,
or worse,
discovering that we are indeed not good enough, and thus is a failure.
You might have bought into the dualistic concept of
“I am either good or bad”
**
“I am either capable or not capable.”
I was also attaching my self-worth to the outcome of what I was doing.
I did not give myself room to see myself on a spectrum.
So instead of keep trying to prove to others (and more importantly myself) that I am good enough, I start to accept that hey,
sometimes, I am not good enough and that’s okay.
I have stopped trying to hype myself up with fake confidence and say “we are all good enough at what we want to do”
That is just sweeping under the carpet and it will only make you feel even more afraid to face uncertainty and setbacks.
Yes, you are good enough as a person. You are worthy regardless of what you achieve.
At the same time, there are times and circumstances when you have to grow your skill sets and learn from experiences.
During these times, your skills and knowledge are not good enough.
And that’s okay.
You can improve and get better.
It’s not the end of the world.
Trying to avoid discovering that you have room for improvement will stress you out much more than facing it, acknowledging it, and taking action to improve it.
I realize that social media has painted unrealistic expectations about how to do good work.
Feels like it has glorified “geniuses” who seem to get things done easily, and get things done right immediately.
That’s just not true.
Everyone has to go through the discomfort of growth if you want to get better.
Otherwise, you’re just in your comfort zone forever.
The key is to be able to hold two things in your mind at the same time, that is,
I have room for improvement, AND I am still worthy as a human.
If you want to go beyond overthinking and discover how you can take action despite feeling nervous, explore coaching with me here. We will uncover the sources of your worries, your limiting beliefs and strengthen your courage and confidence muscles instead.
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