Trying Not to Be Perfect

We're told we should strive to be perfect. It says so in the scriptures, so it must be true, right? But when you're a perfectionist like me, that idea can be paralyzing. If you can't do something perfectly, you might as well not even try. Anything less than perfection equals failure. You feel like you let yourself and everyone else down, and you beat yourself up over every little mistake. Yes, the logical side of my brain understands that I'm not ever going to be perfect, especially not the first time I try something, but the obnoxious perfectionist voices in my head can be loud and insistent and overwhelming. I've been listening to those voices for as long as I can remember. And I've been trying to fight against them for almost as long.

I guess it's nice that I found a career that values perfectionism; in fact, editing kind of requires it, so at least I'm putting my biggest flaw to good use. Yeah, except that I let that flaw take over the rest of my life too, where it's definitely not an asset. I even stopped trying to fight against the voices for a while, figuring it was no use. And I gradually became a horrible person who hated myself and walked around with a stick up my ass because I was too tightly wound to relax.

So I've been trying to relax more. Zumba helps immensely. Teaching Zumba helps even more. There is no such thing as teaching a perfect class, at least for me. I'm always going to do the wrong step to the wrong part of the music, or go the wrong direction, or hold up four fingers when I really wanted to cue that we're doing something twice—at least a few times during the hour. But I'm not there to be perfect; I'm there to help the people in my class get their sweat on and have a blast doing it. The music keeps going, and so do I. I've even learned to laugh at myself while I'm screwing up. And guess what? As I've relaxed and taken myself less seriously, I've become a better instructor.

Another thing that helps is friends who seem to like me even though they've seen parts of me I'd rather keep hidden from the world. The fact that seeing those ugly parts of me hasn't scared them away yet is completely mind-blowing to me. I know everyone has flaws, and I think I'm pretty good at accepting them in other people, but I never thought that kind of acceptance applied to me. Maybe if other people can accept me the way I am, flaws and all, I can too. Other things that help: being creative just for creativity's sake; turning on some music and just dancing around my living room like I did when I was younger; escaping to the outdoors more often; trying new things, even when I know I'm going to stink at them; and attempting to be more spontaneous.

So I'm getting better. But the voices are still there, and more often than I like, they get the best of me. There was something I really wanted to do on Saturday, but I doubted and worried until it was too late to get involved. And then I spent way too much time beating myself up about playing it safe and opting out of what could have been a great adventure. I even got so sick of beating myself up mentally that I went to the gym so I could beat myself up physically too. (It worked, by the way; I'm sore.)

I know this is going to be a lifelong battle; the voices have been there for too long to just disappear completely. But my goal is to learn to pay so little attention to them that I can release myself from the inhibitions that prevent me from living life to the fullest. I've seen and experienced glimpses of what a life like that could be, and that's a life worth living.