Allow Yourself To Be Imperfect… Even If You’re A Perfectionist

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One of the most painful, disturbing problems in life is perfectionism.

Some people are perfectionists only at work, not in other areas of life. Still it kills positive energy and decreases efficiency. It’s exhausting and it affects mood and health.

This is a tough one because perfectionists don’t like to hear any answer that don’t paint them as perfect.

Let me speak for myself and a lot of my students, and then you see if you might fit this. A lot of my students and I got our perfectionism from a place of either over-criticism when we were young or an over-reliance on approval from others.

If you take a look at those two things that occurred when you were young, you can ask, “Did my parents, teachers, elders, brothers, sisters or whoever I respected criticize me so severely, once or often, that it still pains me to this day?”

If so, then there’s a fear that when you do something wrong something bad will happen. It’s a good reason to not want to do things wrong.

You’ve got to take a look and see where this comes from. For example, was everything cool in your life except for at school where your teacher was really harsh and you were really criticized? If you didn’t get the approval, were you ostracized at school and the kids didn’t like you?

Very often what people don’t realize is that your work life is a direct reflection today as an adult as your school life was when you were a kid, so I would look to that arena and see if there’s anything there. That will give you the why.

Once you know why you’ve got this perfectionism going on, then you have to ask, “Is it worth it and does it help me?”

There are some really positive elements about being a perfectionist, and there are really negative ones. What can possibly be good about being a perfectionist?

The obvious one is that usually perfectionists attempt to do things with excellence. The result is generally pretty decent, or at least you’re going to have pretty high quality when you’re dealing with a perfectionist versus someone who doesn’t give a sh*t, yes?

You should take that, enjoy it, embrace it and say, “That’s a great thing that I have this perfectionism. It gives me an opportunity to want to be excellent, and that is a very great trait.”

On the negative side, it hurts energy. It makes you feel like it can never be right or good enough, you never achieve enough and you’re never good enough. Because you’re never good enough and you don’t feel good about whatever you do you start to not want to take on new things, because you know you’re just going to get that bad feeling back again.

Here’s what you can do about this:

1. Locate where your perfection/imperfection comes from and accept it without judgment. 21st century Buddha says, “Sh*t happens.” Getting over it is a process, but knowledge is empowerment.
2. It’s a conditioned process. You can un-condition it.

You can say, “Thank you for sharing,” get yourself back into the game and acknowledge it, “I’m going to start fresh today. Today I’m perfect in the universe.”

This is literally true, by the way. On a spiritual level you’re perfect the way you are, with all of your flaws, good things and bad things.

If you see something is not perfect, allow yourself to play. Allow yourself to be imperfect and messy, and allow yourself to screw up once in a while. See that you’re not going to die.

Here’s one of the homework assignments we give for people in some of the courses for perfectionists: dress with your clothes backward. I want you to have your shirt half in and half out. I want your underwear to be showing, and I want your hair to be all messed up.

Allow yourself to be imperfect. Allow yourself to love yourself no matter how you are.

Love yourself unconditionally no matter what. That is the answer.

What do you think? Do you have any experiences you can share about perfectionism? We want to hear from you!

Rich Life Club

This answer came from one of T. Harv Eker’s Tough Love Mentoring Calls.
This is 1 of the 5 critical tools for financial mastery offered inside the
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