My Ongoing Battle with Perfectionism

I have always been the perfectionist type. To give you an idea, I’ve already written and deleted three attempted drafts of this post because they were “not good enough.” In the past, I had never viewed my self-criticism as harsh; it had allowed me to strive for more for myself. If something was not right according to my standards, it was not worth doing at all. This black-and-white, all-or-nothing approach to life once served me. I excelled in school. I did not know procrastination. Assignments were not submitted until completed to my satisfaction, and exams were opportunities in which I could demonstrate that I had every fact perfectly committed to memory. My high school identity became “the girl who was always studying.” I was the “smart one.” In my large group of friends, this made me feel special. Worthy. Important. I never knew other qualities that made me, me. At the time, they wouldn’t have even mattered; I would disregard them as untrue. This superficial understanding of myself led me to Berkeley, California, where I began my freshman year of college. If high school was my yellow brick road, UC Berkeley was my Emerald City. I spent the formative years of my life pursuing a dream that I could neither make sense of nor articulate. Why Berkeley? Why was it so important that you go there? I couldn’t find the words because, realistically, I didn’t know why. Was it that I yearned for my dad’s pride? Was it the sparkle in my college counselor’s eye when she said the university’s name? Or, could it have been that attending Berkeley gave me a sense of self-worth— a means of proving to myself and others that I was finally “good enough?”

Almost four years later, I still have not determined the why. Although I only spent a year in Berkeley, it is a period of time that still manages to perplex me. If I had achieved my so-called dream of attending UC Berkeley, why was I so miserable there? Why was it the most difficult year of my life? Why is it a memory that my brain actively chooses to forget every day because it was, and still is, so painful?

The point of me writing this post is not to discuss Berkeley. As I mentioned, the specificities of my freshman year remain largely a mystery. What I do know, however, is how my life changed after that year. Spoiler alert— I still experience perfectionistic impulses that I often act upon. In fact, once UC Berkeley failed to live up to my idealistic expectations, I shifted my focus to a new area of my life that needed perfecting. I sought to become the “healthiest person I knew” (I want to clarify that, at the time, my understanding of “health” was actually unhealthy. I have since begun to learn that “health” transcends the physical body and encompasses your mind and spirit as well. I will explore this topic more in a later post). Because school was no longer working out according to my expectations (I was now in community college— never a part of my academic plan), I needed to find another aspect of my life to perfect. For a period of three years and change, I gradually began a detrimental process of over-exercising, restricting food, and placing every ounce of self-worth on my body image. My brain had failed me, now it was time for my body to step up. My detail-oriented work ethic that once served me in school morphed into an obsession with food, fitness, and numbers (I’m sure you can guess which ones). At this point in time, I don’t feel ready to divulge further details of this particular experience. What I want to talk about is how I have grown from it.

Every day, I struggle with urges to change aspects of myself. Perfectionism is in my genes. However, today, its presence in my life looks different. Instead of dismissing these impulses, I have begun a process of trying to redirect them. Something I’ve only recently discovered about myself is my creative ability. I have always loved to write, but have never trusted myself to go through with the development of a piece. Writing is scary because it is imperfect. Your message will not resonate with everyone; it might even bother some. Previously, this has been reason enough for me to dismiss the process. However, after writing my first piece and continuing with a second, I have realized that I deserve space to put my words out into the world. Writing is cathartic for me. Why not share my words with others in the hope that they might serve the same purpose for them?

After beginning to write I decided to create a physical space dedicated to publishing my work. I recently designed a personal website, in which I have allotted room for my writing, my professional work, and my interest in popular culture. I even decided to include an “About Me” page so site visitors can see who I am and the qualities that make me unique. The space is a work in progress, but so am I.

One of the greatest lessons I have learned from my life’s experiences thus far is that we are our own harshest critics. Sometimes I think about how different my life would look if I channeled my self-doubt into confidence, my judgments into praise. So often I believe we are surrounded by extremes— either people who are narcissistic and cocky, or people who are so hard on themselves that they are unable to see the goodness within. Just as I have learned from my time since attending Berkeley, life does not have to be black-and-white. We can feel positively about ourselves while recognizing our flaws. We can be proud of our accomplishments without being arrogant. We can be sad that something didn’t go as planned without letting it derail our lives. I can be both meticulous and creative. I can put aside my self-inflicted need to be “perfect,” and instead trust my intuition to tell stories, design content, and generate ideas that I feel good about sharing with the world. After all, perfection isn’t a feeling because perfection isn’t real. It’s ironic, because once I have begun to ignore my yearning for perfection is when I have created some of my most cherished work.