The Pain of Being Perfect

Some of my most vivid memories are of my failures.

Some of the moments that stick out to me the most, are the moments when I’d given my heart to something, but it still did not work out.

And after years of emotional work, both for myself and with clients, I learned just how much is carried in our wounds around failure, perfectionism, and worthiness. It often sounds like:

I failed. I am a failure.

I let them down.

They’re going to be disappointed in me.

This means I am not good enough.

We may not always think consciously about how much “messing up” weighs on our sense of self worth, even though so many of us learned to define ourselves by what we do and how well we do it.

This need to be perfect, to be in control, and to avoid failure at all costs is so painful.

And it was likely one of your fiercest protectors.

As long as you are perfect, everyone would be okay.

As long as you are perfect, nothing bad will happen. 

As long as you are perfect, no one will be upset with you.

As long as you are perfect, no one will leave you. 

At least, that’s what the Perfectionist Part of you believed. 

It was willing to go the distance to aim for the unrealistic status of being perfect, just to keep you safe.

That’s often why our anxiety compels us to contort ourselves, to neglect and abandon ourselves, to overburden ourselves just to come as close to perfect as we can get.

This is why we usually sign up for the pain of being perfect more willingly than we do to the courage of being seen, being human, and being real.

It might feel scarier to learn the art of unravelling, of letting go, of being messy, of releasing control, of allowing uncertainty, of being seen, than to practice perfection.

But, perfection may have fatigued you by now.

Although perfection has worked hard to keep you safe, in community, and in control, it also may have left you exhausted, isolated, and disconnected from who you really are.

Perfection sometimes is our path to harm, when it supports us in repeating the ways others expected us to perform for love, or when it supports us in self-abandoning behaviors just to keep up a status quo.

I hope you lean into your exhaustion, your weariness, your low energy with curiosity, because it may be begging for something new…

Could your body’s breakdown be asking you to choose another way?

Can we be critical of relationships and spaces that require us to self-neglect in order to sustain?

Can we be skeptical of seeking perfection, but interested in how freeing and liberating imperfection might actually be?

I hope you take a look deep within, and notice the pain in you, with a fresh hope that you can let it go.

That you can let your need to be perfect go.

Maybe releasing Perfectionism and our fear of failing is the exhale we’ve been craving. 

Maybe the answer was never to try harder, but to try differently. To try ease, patience, authenticity, vulnerability, and getting it wrong. 

Maybe it was always going to be uncomfortable, but it didn’t have to hurt. 

Maybe the messiness, the humanness, the imperfectness of it all was our path to love this whole time.

Want to dive deeper? Listen to Episode 3 of the BGS Podcast: The Fear of Failure: The Relational Wound of Perfectionism and subscribe to the SeenSunday newsletter.