Before I started to write down my thoughts to share today, I typed out the word “Perfectionism” across the top of my computer screen and centered it. I immediately erased it and typed it again because I wanted it in all capitals. Then I thought it would look nice bolded. Then I thought it should be underlined, too. And a little bigger, so I changed the type size. I made it just perfect. See?

Now, then, I thought, as I sat down to write - what was it I wanted to say about perfectionism? Then it hit me – what I had just done – just to create a title no one would ever see. The way this title looks on this page pretty much says everything you need to know about me and perfectionism. One of my strongest assets; one of my biggest curses. Key to my success; key to my misery. Now don’t misunderstand, there’s nothing wrong with wanting to get things just right, but consider my work on the perfect heading: it helped no one, took time, distracted me and turned into its own goal, serving nothing. And the truth is – and this is the point - I’m not sure I could have kept writing if I hadn’t gotten that title to look just right first. A messy title would have bugged me.

In their book, Too Perfect: When Being Perfect Gets Out of Control, Jeanette Dewyze and Allan Mallinger start off with kind of a check list – sort of a “You-may-be a redneck if…”, only it’s for perfectionists. See if any of this rings a bell…or maybe it will remind you of someone sitting close by.

Here goes: You may be a perfectionist if:

1. You are so driven to meet professional or personal goals that you can’t abandon yourself to even a few hours of undirected leisure without feeling guilty or undisciplined.
2. You are so finicky that your pleasure is spoiled if things are not “just so.”
3. You are a work-a-holic whose keen, hyperactive mind all too often bogs you down in painful worry or rumination.
4. Your need to improve and polish every piece of work, chronically causes you to devote much more time than necessary to even inconsequential assignments.
5. You are so intent on finding the ultimate romantic mate, that you seem unable to commit to any long term relationship.
6. You are so acclimated to working long hours that you can’t bring yourself to cut back, even when confronted with evidence that overwork is ruining your health or your family relationships.

Enough? Enough for me, certainly. Several in there – nailed. And I see my parents as well. Growing up the daughter of not one, but two perfectionists, I never knew there was another way to be. And for a long time, perfectionism served me well, the dark side well-hidden. Bosses loved me. I climbed higher on the professional ladder than I ever dreamed I’d get. I worked and worked until my work was perfect. I never considered any task to which I was assigned trivial, and I stayed up late – came in early – so it would be done exactly right. Perfectly.

So what could be wrong with that? Well, for starters, being a perfectionist is like living in the future. Perfectionists are constantly scanning the horizon, looking for what needs to be perfected in order to make everything okay. Perfectionism whispers, “If you can just get x, y, and z done, then you will be happy.” Truth is, you can never get it all done. So perfectionists are condemned to live in a state of perpetual dissatisfaction – the opposite of serenity and peace. Perfectionism makes it impossible to enjoy the moment.

And, if you think about it, perfectionism has all the hallmarks of an addiction. It promises you the world, hooks you, and, like any good drug, the more you get, the more you want, so the more you strive for greater and greater perfection. The problem is that in the process, you lose who you are and what you really want. In fact, you’re not thinking about yourself at all. You’re thinking about what other people want from you and you are busy finding ways to give it to them. So you can get that hit. Under the grip of perfectionism, you mold and shape yourself into a person you may not even recognize after awhile. You become the image of who you think people want you to be. You are not your authentic self.

I consider myself to be a recovering perfectionist. Back when I was a practicing perfectionist, fear is what drove me. I made everything as perfect as possible because I was afraid of what would happen if I didn’t. I was afraid that people would disapprove of me. And I couldn’t bear that. I thrived on people’s approval and was sustained by their adoration. “How does she do it? Isn’t she amazing,” was like food for me.

If I slipped up, cracked under the pressure -- and who wouldn’t, a more than full time job, lots of travel, stress, while trying to be the perfect mom to young twins -- if anyone saw me as less than perfect, I thought I would die. I was really hard on myself – mortified if someone saw me snap at my children, saw my messy house, saw me out of control in any way. I’d just try harder.

I remember one Sunday afternoon my husband and I took the twins to the park. They were probably about three years old at the time. And so cute. What I remember was being entirely focused on what other people thought of them, what they thought of us as a family. It was almost like an out-of-body experience, because I kept compulsively looking at us as if I were a third party looking in. I wanted us to look happy, like we had it all. I probably remember this day most of all because it was a day no one would cooperate with my image of perfection. The kids started fighting, which made my husband crabby. I remember experiencing this moment of internal fury that was so ridiculous, even my perfectionist-drug-induced self could see how ludicrous I was being. I was so intent on trying to control what others would think, that I had completely missed the opportunity to enjoy my family.

Like a drug addict who gets strung out, eventually my perfectionism created great strain within me. It was getting harder and harder to keep all the balls in the air. I was exhausted for starters; exhausted by the effort needed to sustain the image I had created. It’s hard work to be someone you are not. Craving peace and happiness, I began an internal process of trying to untangle the various parts of me… trying to figure out what was really me and what was what I thought people wanted me to be. I had this image of picking up strands of myself and saying: Is this me? No. Toss away. Is this me? Yes. Keep. It was a frightening process because I really didn’t know what was going to be left at the end. Just how many parts of me were adopted to perpetuate the impression that I have it all together? Turns out my job at the time wasn’t me, my marriage wasn’t me. Thank god being a mother was me. That one would have been harder to toss.

Another way to get to the core of our authentic selves is by working hard to identify our true passions. Our passions focus our intentions like a laser beam, affect real change, make a difference in the world. When you are working at one of your passions, work doesn’t feel like work.  

Passion is way too messy for perfectionism. In fact, perfectionism kills passion. Passion is like a roaring campfire and perfectionism is the cold bucket of water that puts it out. Passion says, “I want to paint, I want to go on an archeological dig, I want to design houses.” Perfectionism says, “You are not good enough. What will people think? You’ll fail.”

Here’s the truth that perfectionism wants us to deny: life is messy. Just when you think you have everything lined up – wham – messy. But rather than just accepting that life is messy, perfectionism tells us that mess is the anomaly - that things are really supposed to be perfect. And if we had just tried harder, there would be no mess.

Another truth - not only is the world messy, we’re all individually messy. Perfectionism whispers to us that we need to hide our imperfect sides. It tells us that our imperfections are unacceptable. And perfectionism tells us our spouse should be perfect, too. So we set out to make it so and then inevitably condemn the failure. Think of the havoc all this creates in relationships. When we hide our true selves while simultaneously shunning the imperfections of those closest to us, we lose any chance for true intimacy.

But here’s the biggest problem with perfectionism. It insists we keep our world small so we can control it. That’s the tragedy of perfectionism. We are so busy keeping the four corners of our little world neat and tidy - as perfect as possible - that we don’t notice we’re in a hamster cage. It has one of those big wheels in it, so we feel like we’re going some place. But we’re not. We’re really just going round and round, faster and faster. And in the process, we’ve done nothing, been inspired by nothing, created nothing, because frankly, we’re just breathing the stale, re-circulated air inside the hamster cage – all this in the name of keeping things as perfect as possible. We think what we’re doing is keeping us safe; but really, what we’re doing is keeping us trapped…trapped by our own fear of letting life get messy. That’s where perfectionism leads us – not into happy, blissful, orderly lives – perfectionism leads us right into the hamster cage.

But look, here’s the thing about the hamster cage. It has a door. And it’s not locked. We can leave any time we like. And usually we get a call. A call from outside the hamster cage – a new opportunity, a new job, a new relationship. We just have to answer and act. It’s only outside the hamster cage, mingling in the messy world, interacting with people, trying new things that we can find that fresh breath of inspiration that leads to creativity, peace of mind, and spiritual growth.

Remember how I said that perfectionism kills passion? Well, here’s what kills perfectionism: gratitude. When we are truly grateful for all the good in our lives – when we can really see that we are not the author of our most precious gifts – and feel gratitude for those gifts in the center of our souls - perfectionism blinks, withers and retreats. Because in those moments, we know deep in our hearts that we are not in control and never were, the opposite of what perfectionism wants us to believe. In the end, we have a perfect paradox: by giving up the belief that we are in control, we are free to become who we really are…who we were meant to be.

May it be so.