Welcome to the Selves Inside You series.
This time I want to talk to you about the perfectionist.
The perfectionist.
I imagine that almost everyone goes,
Yup,
I know exactly what you're talking about.
The perfectionist.
The perfectionist is that part in us that has these impossible standards.
It has impossible standards.
It has such a high bar for how we should do things in whatever arena.
How we should cook,
How we should conversate,
How we should make love,
How we should ride our bicycles,
How we should,
You name it.
It has such high standards that we can never meet them.
We can never meet them.
The perfectionist never feels that we meet them.
And so it gives a lot of fodder for the inner critic.
They work together,
The perfectionist and the inner critic.
Perfectionist says,
This is what the bar is.
And the inner critic says,
Yup,
And you didn't cut it.
You didn't make the cut.
So perfectionism is,
In a way,
A double-edged sword.
If we didn't have some drive towards improving ourselves,
Some impulse towards perfecting a craft or really developing and bringing out the best in us,
Then we would just settle for mediocrity.
Perfectionist is why we have great works of art.
It's why we've had social justice movements that have opened up freedom for so many people,
Because there are high standards.
There are beautiful visions for what is possible.
So the perfectionist is not something that we can just get rid of.
But with awareness,
We can have a realistic or a helpful relationship with the perfectionist.
The thing about the perfectionist is it doesn't care that we're human.
In fact,
For the perfectionist,
That we're human is a big problem.
Perfectionists would like us to be perfect,
Which means to be flawless,
Which means to not be human,
To not have shortcomings.
We're not robots.
We're not robots.
That's not even desirable.
The funny thing is,
Is if we were really perfect and always did things right,
I bet the perfectionist would get on us for that.
You're too perfect.
You're too something.
So how do we,
First of all,
Recognize the perfectionist?
We recognize the perfectionist when we feel that nothing we do ever makes the grade.
Nothing makes the grade.
We are not able to be satisfied with what we do.
Wouldn't it be wonderful if we could,
On one hand,
See that,
Yeah,
I could write a better poem.
That's in me,
That potential.
And yet at the same time,
There was the ability to appreciate what we wrote,
To appreciate where we're at,
For example.
Wouldn't it be wonderful if we could notice that,
Yeah,
Our partners have some shortcomings.
It would be great if they stopped watching Who's the Boss reruns constantly.
But if we could accept them as they are and say,
Oh yeah,
I'm glad that they have some quirks.
I'm imperfect too.
So we see the perfectionist by noticing that nothing is acceptable.
Nothing is good enough.
Perfectionist is looking through our eyes when there's really just continual dissatisfaction in the arena of this or that or she or he or I could just be better.
Just be better.
We can recognize the perfectionist in the inability to just rest,
To just be at ease,
To just exist.
The perfectionist will have us continually doing something because there's a lot to be done.
In fact,
There's a whole list of places that we need work and so the perfectionist will goad us to get those things done.
There's another self that tends to work with the perfectionist.
You may feel that it's a different self.
You may feel that it's the same as the perfectionist.
That other self is the one who makes the lists,
Who always has a list of what we have to do and is always pushing us to do more.
But the perfectionist,
Broadly speaking,
Simply won't let us rest because there's too much flaws in ourselves,
In our homes,
In everything.
So begin to get some separation,
Some detachment,
Some perspective on the perfectionist.
Now the perfectionist doesn't know how to laugh so much at things.
Everything is very serious.
So one way to get some space and get out of the perfectionist is to connect with our sense of humor,
To just be able to laugh at ourselves and laugh at the world and laugh at our partners,
Not from a judgmental place but from a,
Boy,
This being human thing is actually pretty funny.
It's pretty funny how hard we work,
How hard we try to meet these various images and standards and we can't.
So connecting with a sense of humor and especially when we can't connect with any sense of humor,
When life seems humorless,
Perfectionist is often right there,
Dead serious,
Without life,
Dead serious.
Another way to get some awareness and space from the perfectionist is simply to hear it when you recognize the perfectionist talking and it has some version of should be or some version of not good enough,
Then ask,
Is that really true?
Get some feedback from someone else.
Is it really true that my cooking is that bad?
What do you think?
Get a reality check because what's true with the perfectionist,
Just like it's true with all the different selves when they are living through us and we're not aware of that,
Is that they can only see their own perspective.
The perfectionist doesn't know that it only sees what could be better.
It only sees what could be better.
It doesn't know that it has that as a fixed way,
A fixed way of looking at our lives and the lives of others.
So please notice the perfectionist,
Bring awareness to the perfectionist and also appreciate that the perfectionist is a necessary part of human life but that the issue is balancing it out with the quality of acceptance and with the quality of humor.
