In my perfectionist era

I thought it would be fitting for my first post to discuss something that I’m dying to discuss—cultural narratives around perfectionism. I recently started listening to the audiobook of The Perfectionist’s Guide to Losing Control by Katherine Morgan Schafler and it has made me think about perfectionism in a way I have never thought of it before.

I, like many people I know, identify as a perfectionist. I am a paper-readjuster, a compulsive counter cleaner, a re-reader of e-mails so I do not miss all the details. I cannot help it—I’ve been like this since I was a kid and was organizing my school clothes by color in my closet. I find peace in creating order out of disorder and balance out of chaos. But for the longest time, I beat myself up for my high standards—Why am I so obsessive about some things? Why can’t I be messier? Why can’t I care less? I thought being a perfectionist was what was causing all of my depression and self-criticism, but really, I think it was my inability to come to terms with myself and accept myself for who I am.

The Perfectionist’s Guide to Losing Control talks about adaptive perfectionism and maladaptive perfectionism—the former being perfectionistic tendencies which benefit you and the latter being perfectionistic tendencies which harm you. I never thought about all the benefits my perfectionism might give me—high standards, ambition, drive, conscientousness, and punctuality—I only thought about all of the ways in which it was ruining my life. I thought the problem was me, but it was the way I was viewing myself. There is a cultural narrative that being a perfectionist is unhealthy, particularly for women. Men who are good at things are lauded as being great in their field, an upstanding guy, etc. For women, with the exception of the domestic sphere, being a perfectionist is seen as unhealthy and imbalanced. Why is that? Because women being really good at things and having ambitions and standards and drive is threatening. Ambition and drive do not have to be purely capitalistic pursuits—you can strive for improvement in nearly any area of your life. Yet all kinds of ambition in women are threatening because ambition goes hand-in-hand with self-empowerment, and women’s empowerment is the ultimate threat to patriarchy. We’re told to do self-care, rest more, do less—all of which I support wholeheartedly. These can certainly be empowering in their own way. But what about that fire inside of women that pushes them to excel—are we to squash that entirely in service of being “healthier” and more “balanced”? Or are we going to honor the parts of ourselves that yearn for more and hold space for them?

I am personally not in alignment with corporate feminism and don’t believe empowerment and capitalism are aligned either. But having goals, dreams, and visions of what we want our lives to ideally be like should not be treated as a crime. Instead of beating ourselves up for being perfectionists, we need to be gentler with ourselves and ensure that our perfectionism is serving us, not disserving us. It is also worth examining whether this perfectionism is really serving us or serving capitalism. Sometimes it does serve both, for example in the case of someone who gets a lot of meaning and satisfaction from their job. In other cases, the perfectionism can be completely maladaptive for us, but beneficial to those who derive profit from it. Wanting to do and be more is not inherently a bad thing—it’s the cultural narrative about it. The problem is not having high standards—it’s lack of self-compassion.

In the book, Schafler says ““You don’t heal by changing who you are; you heal by learning how to be yourself in the world.” That really stuck with me.

So, yeah, I am a perfectionist :) But I am a perfectionist about the things that matter to me, align with my values, and bring me joy in this world. And I am tired of apologizing for caring so much—because I care so much. Limiting my heart feels like a betrayal to myself. Let that thing love what it loves and feel what it feels and shoot for the fucking stars.

The latest thing I’ve enjoyed being a perfectionist about is my morning coffee—I need just the right roast, milk-to-coffee ratio, and amount of cinnamon. I’ll nail it someday.