The Prison of Perfectionism
Medium in 2019 <> Published in The Echo: Journal of Creative Nonfiction in 2020
Hello out there,
I’m writing to you from prison. You may have heard of this place: It’s called Perfectionism.
My name is Anne Bollin. Anne Bollin, like Henry VIII’s wife Anne B-o-l-e-y-n who was imprisoned and beheaded by her royal husband when she failed to meet his standards of perfection. Unlike my ancient namesake, I am shackled by arbitrary standards of perfection that I think others have of me, or that I impose on myself. Can you relate? If so, perhaps we can break out of this place together!
The prison bars of perfectionism appear when I’m on the verge of taking a risk that involves vulnerability. Let’s say I start a creative project: I’ll get excited by a new idea, complete eighty percent, then stop…because there’s something about the piece doesn’t feel quite right. That last twenty percent involves completing and putting the piece out into the world. That’s when I hesitate and start to erect prison bars in my mind: The first bar, What if this is not what I really want to say?; second bar, What if I fail to see an important perspective and hurt/offend someone with what I put out there?; the third bar, What if this results in the loss of love?
I can stay inside this prison for years, rationalizing that I must wait a bit longer, for one more insight to tie my project together, or apply one more polish to transform the umpteenth draft to perfect completion. If I am to keep my figurative head (aka my sanity), I need to find another way — some strategy or key — to break out of this prison of perfectionism.
How did I lose my freedom?
This loss of freedom is based on a longstanding semi-conscious belief that that Perfect = Safe. If my work is flawless — if I cover every base and achieve every goal — then I won’t be vulnerable. This playbook is hard to shake as it has driven me to achievement educationally, professionally — to color-coded spreadsheets, calendars and closets, to precision and promptness. I have felt satisfaction and pride from such achievements, but over the years the stress has taken its toll.
In How To Overcome Perfectionism: 4 Secrets From Research, Eric Barker writes:
“A perfectionistic outlook is no fun. You live in the future, and the present is a high-stakes situation where every mistake has enormous ramifications later. You’re under perpetual threat, constantly scanning for worst-case scenarios, always trying to dodge any potential for error or criticism…So why don’t perfectionists just change? Because having high standards and working hard really does produce results. And that’s what’s so insidious about the problem. Being conscientious and thorough are praised, workaholism is among the most acceptable of addictions and we often throw around maxims like ‘you can never be too careful.’ (Spoiler alert: actually, you can.)”
What’s the cost?
Last year I was working at my standard clip, making sure that no balls were dropped, as I always have. I was checking my email every fifteen minutes. I was tired and irritable. I got that the relentless game of Whac-A-Mole was unsustainable, but how could I possibly learn to see the moles that pop up as not needing to be whacked?
One Friday night I wandered into a talk on mindfulness. The instructors were wearing white flowy outfits. They described the way I was feeling as “wired and tired” and suggested “surrender” and “trust” as remedies for my exhaustion. My arms crossed reflexively across my chest, “Must be nice…but I have work to do.” And btw how do I know that if I “surrender” the moles won’t ban together to storm the house?
So I kept my head down, as they say, and kept on working. The more exhausted I became the more argumentative I was when a bright-eyed instructor bounced along to suggest there was an alternative. They were naive, I figured, so I kept them at bay by big-timing them with a long list of my responsibilities. “Thank you for your suggestion, but people are counting on me to (insert laundry list of important things)…” At work I was becoming less creative and more forceful. At home I lamented to my partner about the stresses of work and on the weekends I “recovered” with cocktails.
Finally, I hit a wall of exhaustion. I was still skeptical but too tired to argue. A friend saw this in my face and suggested a “wellness” retreat in Northern California. I started to analyze the cost benefits and she grabbed me by the shoulders: “Go. You need this.” Fair enough. Worst case, if the trek didn’t help I’d have definitive closure that relief was unattainable and I could return to business as usual. So I drove up to a forested land north of San Francisco. We kicked off with an exercise called “What’s the cost?” where another person asks you a bunch of times in succession the cost of holding onto something that you had identified as not serving you.
Q: What’s the cost?
A: The cost of perfectionism is that it keeps me from feeling free to share my creativity.
Q: What’s the cost?
A: The cost is that living in the future robs me of the present moment.
Q: What’s the cost?
A: The cost is that I will look back on my life with regret for the things I wanted to create but didn’t.
-Repeat fifty times -
What emerged for me here was that while I benefit from and enjoy some of the fruits of my perfectionistic tendencies (the color-coded calendar is beautiful and practical), they also hold me back in areas that are important to me. The mallet (my perfectionism) is a great tool to have — but at this point, am I using it or is it using me? What if I could wield the mallet in the times that it serves me, and choose another tool in the times it isn’t needed? What if, instead of a game of Whac-A-Mole, I saw life as a game of golf? Instead of a mallet, a nine-iron. In a golf game, I could use a nine-iron all eighteen holes, but I’d probably do better if I picked a club to match the distance I need to hit. An attorney friend told me recently, “It took me a while to get that I need to show up differently depending on the circumstance. Intensity can be helpful to cross-examine a witness but not so much with my five year old.”
My perfectionistic mind can wrap around the idea of picking the optimal tool to fit each goal. Perhaps thinking of myself as a golfer will help me put down the mallet and relax my standards in some departments. But, why do I still feel that pang of fear and avoidance when it comes to finishing a piece? What is at the root of this?
Perfection: Latin perfectiō “a completing,” from perficere “to finish.”
To finish. When is something truly finished? When it is no longer evolving, no longer living. Perfection = Death.
Maybe perfection isn’t for mere mortals — maybe it’s a state reserved for nature and her cycles over thousands of years and beyond. In Northern California I saw perfection in Redwood trees two-thousand years old. I’ve seen perfection on Flathead Lake, Montana in the blues of the lake, mountains and sky that blend together and connect the heavens with the earth. I’ve seen perfection in the orange melting into reds and yellows over the ocean as the sun sets. In the majesty of the Southern magnolia trees that grew outside my childhood home in Georgia. These were perfect to me — I couldn’t fathom any improvement. But if perfection is death and nature is alive, then nature is also imperfect, or in its perfection it contradicts, defies or shatters the idea of perfection itself…In fact, it seems absurd to attempt to define nature in these terms — nature just is.
The prison bars come back into my mind’s eye. The first bar, What if this is not what I really want to say? Seeing perfection as dead, stagnant helps me see that each project, each creation is a living reflection of where I am in my life at a particular moment in time. There is no light switch, no future final state in life’s continuous evolution. With this in mind I can consciously reject the arrival fallacy: that when I achieve a particular outcome in the future, I’ll finally become — and remain — happy. And, then, choose to appreciate the alive, flawed beauty of a project as it is, and the learning opportunity in each draft to develop, strengthen, and expand my creative powers. If perfection is death, I choose imperfection and life.
Second bar, What if I fail to see an important perspective and hurt/offend someone? Behind this bar is the assumption that by keeping my thoughts to myself — not speaking up, not sharing my work, not raising my hand — that I will do no harm. What’s really happening is that when I don’t share something that could be helpful, I prioritize my own comfort over the greater good, failing to raise topics or questions that could move the conversation forward, encourage others to share their stories or strengthen collective ties between us. My intention for sharing is not to hurt or offend, but if I want to make a difference I must accept and expect that something I share will inadvertently offend or upset someone.
Brené Brown says:
“Do the best work you can and find the courage to put your work out there and know that, no matter what you do, some people are going to like it and some people aren’t. All you can really control is how you feel about what you’ve contributed. The thing was to say out loud how hard that really is: ‘I want to be brave with my work and I want to be brave with my life.’”
Attempting to meet the expectations I think others have for me and my own high ones is truly exhausting. I know, I’ve tried. To continue is to guarantee the same fate as Anne Boleyn, that I lose my life and my freedom because the standard against which I’m being judged is an impossible, moving target.
This modern Anne Bollin has learned that true freedom lies in defining my own standards. What is “good enough” for me? I create to unleash my imagination, clarify my thinking and paint emotions so I can see them. I do it for the joy of doing it. I share with the hope that something in my experience will make a positive impact in the life of someone somewhere out there, let them know they’re not alone, offer a perspective that helps them to live with less fear and more freedom. For me, that’s enough.
The final prison bar: What if this results in the loss of love? This taps into the primal fear of losing connection with others and getting kicked out of the tribe. To protect from this potential loss, one option is to show up as a strategically packaged version of myself, sharing only the parts that don’t seem too vulnerable. This packaged approach not only costs energy, it actually blocks the authentic connection that I want. In having the courage to share more of myself, I open the doors to create and grow meaningful connections. I can reclaim the energy spent worrying about who I think I need to be in order to be loveable and have more to give to the people, projects and pursuits that I love.
Then there’s the deep personal cost. When I live my life in relation to a standard of perfection, a future time and place when I have achieved this or learned that or banked this much or gotten myself into the shape I want, I reject myself in the present. The truly tragic part is that this perfectionistic future orientation has no end: no matter how well I perform at a given challenge, there’s always the next one and then the next one, and in the meantime I am withholding full acceptance and love of myself like some sort of a torturous form of motivation.
If I am going to break myself out of prison I realize that it’s a matter of making a choice. The choice to fully accept and love myself now, in this very moment, without conditions or prerequisites. This is so much easier to say than it is to do. For me it hasn’t been a light switch thing either, it’s a continual practice with ups and downs, teaching myself to notice when I start strategising or criticizing — stop — and speak the word “grace.”
Perfection is an impossible standard, yet it is understandable that we want to make something “perfect,” that will do away with all the sadness, suffering and imperfections of this world. The paradox is that we will try and, inevitably, we will fail, and out of our trial and error and limitations comes the reminder of our own and others’ humanity. With this key in hand, this Anne Bollin will stick her neck out in pursuit of living progress over dead perfection, of meaningful connection and choosing love now. I choose imperfection and life — and the doors of my prison swing open.
