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I have been in perfectionist hell for much too long. I am only just realizing it and I am trying to break free.
In almost everything I have done I have had a fear of sharing with others until I felt I had perfected whatever it was I needed to complete. There are some elements of Imposter Syndrome that cause this in me, but we explore that in another post.
I had a breaking point recently where a lot of my fears, insecurities, and weaknesses were thrown in my face. Although seeing your weaknesses is daunting, it is even more gratifying and refreshing to start uncovering the positive opportunities that are tangled.
A few weeks ago my wife shared a newsletter with me from Holisticism. The first sentence gave me enough inspiration to write for 30 minutes straight with no stops. Here are some of the key points as I am starting to explore my internal fears that lead me to use perfection as my imperfect measuring stick.
Have you had similar experiences, fears, or effects of trying to be “perfect”?
It’s impossible to be perfect (drats.), and when you realize that fact you can unclench your butthole and make more things with less preciousness. (bc perfectionism keeps us in a riptide of stasis)
~Holisticism newsletter
Time to unclench that butthole.
A “riptide of stasis” has been my home for awhile now.
The consequences of perfectionism for me seem to be:
- Waiting to share / build community until reaching a certain level of achievement
- Difficulty acknowledging and celebrating small wins
- Cycle of burnout and loss of consistent joy
- Over-preparing to avoid a weak appearance
- The feeling of being in debt to anyone that shows me recognition or interest
I’ll break down a couple of these.
Waiting to share until reaching a certain level of achievement
As a first step to sharing, here are things I am working on. Let me know if you want to collaborate:
- Giving Bag
- Creating a fashion line
- Repurposing packaging into art
- Content creation
- Music production and performance
- Poker and Risk
- Charitable work
- Financial education/investing
- Learning Farsi
- Birds
- Open a secretive lounge or bar. Shhh!
- Making fresh juice in the morning
- Wandering cobblestone streets
- Turning my house into a rental
- Going to Alaska
- Practicing yoga and meditation
These activities bring me joy, but many times I let my joyful experiences get clouded by over-protecting myself from outside influence.
Whether it has been conscious or not, it seems I have felt that the outside influence when talking about my interests will be detrimental to the end product since I’m not an expert, when in reality the influence of others is more likely to enhance productivity and joy. I isolate interests and passions from others and as a result I rarely get to a point where I can share anything at all. Even my closest friends would be surprised by some of this list.
When I actually get to a point where I feel comfortable sharing it is far later than it should be and I’m already at or past a point of burnout.
I want to start collaborating with people who have similar interests. I no longer want to do everything on my own like before.
Burnout
I’ve hit burnout roughly 6 times in my life. All have been related to work, but only about half were from my full-time job. The rest of the burnout experiences came directly form my side-hustles and personal interests that I kept to myself, as described above. I pressured myself to “work” and perform, rather than allowing myself to invite in consistent joy.
It is a simple change of reference. The actions I take on a daily basis are not drastically different, but my mindset flips from performance standards to finding moments of joy and gratitude.
The term “burnout” came from an American psychologist named Herbert Freudenberger who said burnout was the consequence of severe stress and high ideals (National Library of Medicine).
Psychology Today mentions that, “The cynicism, depression, and lethargy that are characteristic of burnout most often occur when a person is not in control of how a job is carried out, at work or at home, or is asked to complete tasks that conflict with their sense of self.” Bolded for extra emphasis.
The confusing part, although I work extremely hard during my full-time jobs and have high quality output, I still have been able to achieve positive work life balance. During my time at TINT, I had high respect for each of my “bosses” and felt truly cared about. I rarely felt out of control.
There must be a different boss that is controlling how I am living my life. I am that boss. I am putting the pressure on myself. There are some deep seated beliefs and insecurities somewhere in my brain that I’m just starting to acknowledge and recognize.
I put so much energy into my jobs to obtain a sense of achievement (based on my “paycheck measuring stick”) that I have so little energy left over for my other passions. This is the problem. I overachieve for others and then am forced to underachieve on my personal interests. There’s something going on with my sense of self worth or ego that is prioritizing putting too much energy into endeavors where I get immediate approval from others.
There’s nothing wrong with doing things that are not your passion. We have to do that to survive in this world. And it’s good to be of service to others. But I need to better control how I save energy for my personal passions.
Losing control of this energy distribution spirals into disappointment, demotivation, and depression. Which then creates large peaks of productivity and the deep valleys of exhaustion, both while isolating myself from broader communities, thus creating a perpetuating cycle.
The Joy Report Card
I am slowly starting to change my life “report card” from money-based to joy-based. Measuring achievement based on joy is difficult because you cannot just look at your bank account to see how much joy you have earned in the past month.
I have memories of the joy I’m trying to invite in more. Many of them revolve around the removal of work stress, adventuring, exploring new places, not having to think and stress about money. I also find joy and energy from being around kind, inspiring people that are motivated to be their best self.
- Exploring Thailand on a scooter
- Sitting at the hidden Fabrique Bakery in Hoxton
- Burning Man
- Blanco White concerts
- Hearty laughter with friends
How does the Joy Report Card work? Well like all things, it is not perfect but I will share (go me!).
Step 1: Write down a list of 5 things that bring you joy on a weekly basis. You can add more if you would like but it is helpful to start simple. For example it could be:
- Eating dinner with your partner
- Moving my body for 10 minutes
- Reading a book
- Making a smoothie
- Calling a friend
- Turning your phone off
It can be anything that allows you space to find joy and reduce any type of weight that might be on you. I have found that a larger goal like “moving to a new city” is not the most helpful on your report card. Focus on the smaller steps that can get you there.
Step 2: After you have your list, do a quick review of how often you currently do them in a normal week. That’s your baseline.
Step 3: Every morning, look at your list and see if there are any pockets of time that you can add in the activities that bring you a bit more joy. One key is to try and be kind to yourself if you are not able to consistently add in items from your list.
You want to avoid having the activities that bring you joy, start to to become “activities that stress me out because I am not doing them”. It is okay to go months with just looking at the list and not doing any of them. But over time your brain will rewire to find pockets of time for you and your joyful activities. It is extremely helpful to remind yourself of what makes you joyful because many times we spend our entire day just thinking of the stressful things we have to do.
An object in motion stays in motion.
Find ways to stay in motion, even if it’s super small.
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p.s. It’s always a work in progress. I should have published this post weeks ago but I kept adjusting.
love you. Quinn 