Why Perfectionism Means Nothing and Everythingfeatured

I grew up in a little glass box. No really, I kind of did. My mom didn’t know any better but to overprotect the precious little doll she brought into the world – me. She ensured cold air rarely touched my face and that I never scraped my knees.

I remember being deathly afraid of ruining outfits but I also remember always knowing I was really really loved. Yes, none of our parents are perfect. But many of them did their very best to make us turn out as okay as possible. I know my parents did just that. I am doing OK in the world I suppose.

One thing that my upbringing left engrained within me was the pursuit of external perfectionism. I was always trying to fit a mold of perfectionism, one that I believed my parents would see as perfect, and that society would accept as perfect.

I always fell short, or at least that is how it always felt. I never felt perfectly pretty enough, I never did perfect enough in school, I was never the perfect-est daughter or friend.

I have learned that I am enough just as I am and that perfect is and is not a thing. I am perfect just as I am in this very moment in time. I am not perfect because of a title I hold or because I have mastered a particular thing or lesson. I am perfect because I am human…because I continue to choose love, continue to choose growth, continue to choose life.

Not feeling good enough…now that is a byproduct of chasing an external definition of perfection I do not subscribe to anymore. “Perfection” as a metric that others set for you, that only exists outside of you.

Ryan Holiday says it best: “Your potential, the absolute best that you are capable of – that’s the metric to measure yourself against.”

And sometimes your absolute best is listening to your body asking for rest. Sometimes your absolute best is training so hard your muscles literally give up. Othertimes your absolute best is making it to the grocery store on a Tuesday.

I know that if I continued to chase perfectionism as an outcome I would never feel whole. And my mom is not the only one who has subscribed to this skewed definition of perfectionism. Society preaches it too. Chase winning. Chase being rich. Chase being famous. Chase a life others envy. If you are forever chasing a thing, an end game, you will forever miss the bigger picture. You will never have enough, you will never give enough, you will never be enough.

Perfection is perspective.

Find perfection in the way the leaves on a tree you have walked by every day dance in the wind. Find perfection in the way you express your love to your partner of decades. Find perfection in every single step of the process.

It is everywhere. You just have to pause. You just have to stop chasing.

Beauty is in the breakdown; Perfection lives within you and surrounds you every single day. It’s your job to notice. It’s your job to be open to experiencing perfection in those spaces you may often overlook or mistake as mundane. If you are perfect at just one thing, you have missed the entire point.

I dare you to open your heart and mind to redefine ‘perfection’ on your own terms. It can mean nothing. Or it can mean everything.

Love Deeply and Forever,

Copyright protected by Digiprove © 2022 Karen  Pierik