How to Avoid the Perfectionism Trap

Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor, the enemy of the people. It will keep you cramped and insane your whole life.

-Anne Lamott

Recovery

Raise your hand if you’ve ever struggled with perfectionism. Though I can’t see you right now as you read this, I have a hunch most of you have your hands up, either literally or figuratively in your heart where no one else can see and wonder if there are bigger problems than perfectionism at stake. Oh, I’ve got your number, I’m a recovering perfectionist.

Scared

Perfection is so illusive, yet so tempting, especially for all you creative, high-achievers out there. It is a vain and futile attempt to attain the unattainable and virtually impossible. Perfectionism is an overt, egoic striving to fill a covert, bleeding insecurity. If we’re really honest here, perfection is scared man’s game.

Drug

I write these words with emboldened authority only because I have had a lifelong, crippling experience with perfectionism. I don’t know the magic potion I sipped on so early in life to fuel the flame, but boy was it potent. I’ve been incredibly judgy and hard on myself from day one. As a complex and sensitive kid (read: dramatic), being understood and well-received always took precedence. Acceptance, identity, and value were—and continue to be— my drug. The temptation is always: “I’m doing pretty good, but just imagine what I could achieve!” This kind of thinking has kept me double bound in the fetal position of literal and figurative dark corners in life many times. I love Anne Lamott’s quote here:

“Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor, the enemy of the people. It will keep you cramped and insane your whole life.”.

Creatives

Bingo. And for creatives, this phenomenon is mass genocide. I believe this is because ideas and concepts are birthed in our thinking mind, which can be an absolutely lovely place to be. We have an brilliant idea for a lyric, a new work flow, a painting, a proposal, and we run with it, executing it immediately and seamlessly, right? Bam…so easy.

Saucy

Wrong. My experience as a writer and working with other creatives is this: that brilliant little idea gets locked up in the thinking mind, stewing and marinating in all kinds of saucy possibility and grandeur, so much so that it never even sees the light of day. Our minds are meant to be the sacred birthplace of ideas. Our minds were not meant to indefinitely house them, ultimately squeezing the life and breath out with toxic and quenching fumes of perfectionism. Oftentimes, we feel so worthless and defeated we either want to numb out with a drug of choice (drugs, booze, sex, shopping, busyness, work, what have you) or we abandon our creative calling all together. This is around the time therapy sounds like a promising option.

David Foster Wallace said it this way,“Perfectionism is very dangerous. Because of course if your fidelity to perfectionism is too high, you never do anything.”.

Big

Well, I want to do great things. I want to show up in relationships and love fully. I want to write my truth, even if it doesn’t rhyme or fit or sound pretty. I want to live into all I am made to be, dreaming big and doing even bigger. I want to be perfectly imperfect; flawed yet beautifully human and uniquely me. I suspect you do as well…

Conundrum

In order to do this, we must let go of the death grip we have on self-doubt. You know that conundrum of shame that says you simply aren’t enough and don’t make the cut? Press the pause button for a second. What is your standard and where does it come from? Again, this insidious little gremlin sneaks in when we forget who were are. For this reason, identity and purpose MUST be deeply instilled into our beings on a cellular level. My perceived reality of me must match up to my deeply believed reality of me.

Personal Creed

I hope you’re wondering about the How? If so, here is a first step: a personal creed. Many world religious traditions thoughtfully construct creeds over time as a firm reminder and proclamation and of their dialed in beliefs and purpose. At my church, we say the Nicene Creed each week. I never understood the beauty and power of this until grappling with my own faulty beliefs about myself that needed mending and constant reminding. We all need reminders, people. Otherwise, we fall prey to self-doubt and perfectionism.

Mirror

What is your personal creed? Over the next week, I encourage you to spend some time journaling about your beliefs, perceived purpose, strengths, desires, and dreams. It doesn’t have to be long or poetic or clever. This is a powerful, life-giving assignment, and one I love helping others tweak to accurately mirror their truth. With this in mind, I’d love to hear what you come up with…

In light of all this, here’s your call to action this week.  Don’t be stymied by sterile lies of perfectionism. Stay in your lane and move to the glorious beat of your own wacky drum. I’m convinced you’ll have some exhilarating stories to tell on the other side.

Love & Gratitude,

Katie

xoxo

Confessions of a Bride: The Joy Hunt

I woke up super early this morning, early for me anyway. It was one of those mornings where the clock read 5:30am the first time I glanced at it and then seemed to chuckle at me as I rolled over to try and fall back asleep. It’s Sunday after all, and I didn’t have anywhere to be for several hours. Determined to sleep a little longer, I closed my eyes and tried to think of nothing while convincing myself I was dozing off again. Nope. Not happening…

5:30am won and I slowly scooted out of bed, surprised by my not too terrible attitude.

Now, if you know me, you probably know I have a wedding coming up, exactly seven days from now (by the time you read this, it will be more like four.) If we’ve ever worked together on a professional level either in therapy or otherwise, you probably know I am a big believer in a relational approach to work, and well, everything! I don’t quite see how trusting relationships of any kind are built without some higher-level awareness of what our personal journeys look like. That being said, I always like to bring honest, if not sometimes unflattering, experiences to the table so they might be helpful learning opportunities for someone else out there. I suppose Brené ruined me with all that talk and research on shame and vulnerability. Permission slip to tastefully self-disclose: granted.

Here is what I’ve learned about the whole wedding planning journey in a laser phrase: don’t do it!! (Ha! Just kidding…I had to.)

Seriously, here we go: protect your joy. What an incredibly joyous occasion and reason for celebration! Yet I have managed to let myself overwhelmingly stress over details I will definitely not remember ten years from now, completely derailing my joy. (Well, besides the fact that my wedding dress alterations were totally botched and I had to start from scratch five days before getting on a plane to tie the knot. Different story. Different day.) Anyways, I pretty much lost it on my sweet, well-meaning wedding planner yesterday and picked a fight with my fiancé over furniture placement post wedding. Really? Despite sleep deprivation and procrastination payback, I needed a healthy dose of perspective or a time-out, whichever came first.

This morning it struck me that I might miss out on the joy of this glorious anticipation if I don’t stay present and grateful for each passing moment. This was both sobering and a relief! Between grinding coffee beans and fumbling through Instagram in the haze of waking up, I caught a glimpse of the most stunning, pillowy fog resting in a valley off in the distance through the back window. I dropped everything to go sit outside and behold this moment. The soft colors of morning began to rise as the symphony of Sunday started it’s warm up. The crisp, chilly air felt clean and waves of leafy green trees stood tall and proud, as if to say, “Finally, she notices what is true and beautiful.”

This present moment is the truest gift we have. You will never be in the exact space reading these words on this same passing day EVER.

I have no way of knowing if the flowers will arrive on time, if our family members all get along and enjoy themselves, if the photographs turn out as beautifully as I hope they do, and if the mascara I bought is as waterproof as it boasts. As far as I know, the groom is still in despite my new appointed position as Mayor of Crazy Town; I found a killer replacement wedding dress on the fly; and there will be tiny, sacred ceremony on a beach in Southern California that will usher in a new appointment of life called marriage.

Life is made up of zillions of moments. As T. S. Eliot so coolly writes, “We must be still, and still moving.” We also must not be afraid to experience our joy fully, without hesitation and cynicism. Let’s find those pockets of joy this week and revel in them, as if to brand them in our beings. If there is a favorite saying I have come to live by and cling to throughout the years, especially these last few months, it is surely this one:

“All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.”

St. Julian of Norwich

World Gone Small: The Isolation Trap

I grew up in Mobile, Alabama. Mobile is a charming southern city, dripping with history, Spanish moss, and extra syllables. My elementary years were challenged as a kid with all that humidity and resulting frizz. However, despite seeming eternal spells of awkward and frizz, my childhood was wonderful in so many ways. I grew up with parents who love and enjoy each other as well as their five wildly colorful kids (still do, I’m pretty sure), and siblings whom I call my closest friends to this day. My Dad is a seasoned entrepreneur, writer, teacher, and visionary. For many years he served in ministry, traveling all over to share his keen insight and passion for our unique calling as Christians in this metastory of life and faith. Even though we grew up in a small town, my world view and hunger for more got off to a big start. I attribute this to my Dad.

One of the most valuable truths Dad instilled in us youngsters was that we were made for something bigger than our experiences, our agendas, and ourselves. My faith journey has been winding to say the least, yet I have always come back to belief in a God who is orchestrating something bigger than what I cling to now and that this God is indeed good. This always gives me hope in times when what I see in front of me is a dark and damaged view of Eden.

When I am cut off from a sense of bigger belonging and purpose, I experience deep depression and anxiety. Remember that scene in Star Wars when Leia, Luke, Han, and Chewbacca get stuck in the Death Star trash compactor? The walls close in on them as they frantically swim through a sea of garbage. Solo dryly remarks, “One thing’s for sure; we’re all gonna be a lot thinner.” Classic. Well, that scene portrays the claustrophobic doom experienced when I feel alone in my struggle. (Sans the charming reframe from Harrison Ford, aka the crush of my youth, and maybe even beyond…  ).

Connectedness to something bigger than self, such as creativity, community, and calling, serves as an emotional umbilical cord. It sustains a steady and nourishing life source of hope.

When depression and/or loneliness hit and that inner dialog goes south, we have two options. We can reach out or we can isolate in our pain. Isolation is a sexy temptress, luring us into her grip one little lie at a time.

I work with countless high achieving, self-aware people in therapy who experience a similar feeling from time to time. Often, this feeling is described as loneliness. Ahh, the “L” word. We have all felt lonely at one point in our lives and from what I have observed, loneliness is part of the human condition. Not to be a buzz-kill, but what if our expectation would allow for those times in life that we feel lonely? What if we could embrace this feeling of loneliness, knowing it is part of the collective human experience as well as one we in fact have control over?

When depression and/or loneliness hit and that inner dialog goes south, we have two options. We can reach out or we can isolate in our pain. Isolation is a sexy temptress, luring us into her grip one little lie at a time.
“No one will understand.”

“No one cares.”

“I don’t want to be a burden.” And on and on…

In many ways, isolation confirms a futile story we make up about ourselves that says, “I don’t deserve love and connection, and therefore I will hide out in isolation.” That screwy lie is the very culprit that endangers our existence and smushes a wondrous world of possibility into a tiny marble of a globe.

In her book Radical Acceptance (purchase at Amazon), Tara Brach articulates, “Feeling unworthy goes hand in hand with feeling separate from others, separate from life. If we are defective, how can we possibly belong? It seems like a vicious cycle: the more deficient we feel, the more separate and vulnerable we feel.”

With this in mind, it is vital that we take inventory of our sense of worthiness and connectedness. When the proverbial trash compactor starts closing in, how can we find a way out through resources of support and community? Life can feel lonely even in a room full of people, which demonstrates the faulty belief that we don’t belong. Lie of the century.

You do belong. You are significant, beautiful, and your life matters.