Perfectionism is Bullshit
Helllooooooo. It feels good to be writing again. I don’t even care if literally nobody reads this but writing has been so therapeutic for me and I don’t even know why I got away from it. Today I want to talk about perfectionism and how it impacts my life.
My name is Marnie, and I’m a perfectionist. If you know me, you know that I’m an all or nothing kind of person. Either I care way too much or I literally don’t give a fuck. I was going to try not to cuss but I just want this to be as real and as raw as possible. Ok, so back to it. Growing up, I always used to say that I didn’t care what people thought of me and the more I think about it now, the more I realize how much bullshit that was, but not in like the traditional way of like what a hot guy thinks of me or the most popular girl thinks of me. I really value the opinion of people that I look up to. I’m a pretty observant person and I pay a lot of attention to little details that probably don’t matter to most people, but that’s just the way I am. The people that I look up to or that inspire me can be people that I know or don’t know, it doesn’t matter. I like to look at them and find their more impressive and redeeming qualities and try to see if I can implement them in my own life. This all sounds great, right? Not necessarily. I find that I’m like obsessed with trying to turn into this “perfect” person that is never going to exist, almost to the point where it’s like toxic? Idk.
This type of thinking follows me in every aspect of life. Growing up as a tennis player, I always wanted to win. I would watch videos on Youtube of professionals serving so that I could mimic their “perfect” form. But if you’ve ever watched tennis, you know that everyone’s serves looks different and the ball still goes in. So what may work for them, may or may not work for me. And even though I’m typing this and acknowledging that I know this fact, it’s something that my brain overlooks. If I try something and it doesn’t work for me, I think why wouldn’t it work for me if so and so does it successfully? Which is completely irrational yet very normal thinking.
Most recently I’ve really let go of any type of routine or discipline I had in place when COVID “started” back in March and have gained all the weight that a I lost and muscled that I gained. Which makes me super mad considering I worked my ass off day after day to get to a place that I was starting to feel good about. It got to a point where I was so far away from my best, that I just kept sort of self destructing and going deeper and deeper into a black hole. I remember spending my rent money on meal after meal on seamless, overpaying for the simplest things because that food made me “feel good” for a moment or two and because I was too lazy to cook. It was a complete flip from the “diet” and lifestyle that I had created in March. I had been cooking almost everything from scratch, eating better than ever and feeling even better. I was all in and with just the blink of an eye, I had thrown it all away. It’s so hard to create those healthy habits and I was and still am so angry with myself for neglecting them. I felt like if I wasn’t going to eat “perfect” then the alternative was to eat like absolute shit. I would order breakfast, lunch and dinner and then top it all off with some wine or tequila drinks in the evening. I couldn’t get on my Peloton either, I was just so like sick of it. This is super common in my life and I’ve never really been good at finding a balance.
This doesn’t only apply to eating, but also to work. If I can’t figure something out, it’s not like my boss says I need you to finish this tonight. In fact, he’ll be like “Oh no worries, we can work on it together tomorrow or the next day” but I literally won’t be able to sleep. I’ll obsess over it, research online if I need to, work overnight if necessary, etc. Like why? For what? Then the next day I’m exhausted and can barely stay awake or function. But if I were to face a problem tomorrow that I couldn’t resolve by 5pm (close of business), I would work late, no doubt. It does not make sense.
It also applies to like my morals and beliefs. Either I believe so strongly one way or I literally don’t care at all. It’s like that middle ground is missing. When I do believe strongly a certain way, sometimes I even find myself projecting that onto others and judging others that don’t agree. Like it’s black or white for me, but not for everyone.
I first identified this behavior as problematic when I was doing my online therapy with Brightside earlier this year in January. There were different training modules and I avoided the perfectionism section for WEEKS and I think that’s because I knew that’s where I struggled the most. For some reason I have this perfect idea of reality that’s not very real at all and when something doesn’t fit perfectly, it stresses me the fuck out. For example, failing at something. It can be as little as sending an email with a typo or as big as publishing a work report for executives with incorrect information. These aren’t necessarily failures and they don’t mean I suck at life or my job, but that’s how they feel to me. My boss always tells me that when something goes wrong, I react so strongly like it’s the end of the world. He’s not wrong, but to be honest, it does feel like the end of the world to me. I just have this unrealistic standard of perfection for myself and I am extremely hard on myself when I don’t meet it — in anything.
So how do you “fix” that? Or how do you live with that? In terms of weight and body image, opening up instagram or the news or the tv or literally anything, and seeing these Kim Kardashian bodies everywhere fucking sucks. It’s draining and exhausting. I get it, they have so much money and they paid to have surgeries to look like this. They also have a lot more free time and resources to dedicate to maintaining their bodies, but I still can’t get past it even though I know it’s not realistic. I’ve spent almost this whole year trying to find ways to work on this and some days are better than others. Here are some of the things that have helped me:
I try to focus on my own personal journey. For example, when I ride my peloton bike, there are all kinds of metrics. I will take the same ride I’ve taken before and see how much better (or worse) I do, and almost always the result is better even by one point. I don’t need to compare myself to every other person with a Peloton that took the same ride, because that doesn’t matter.
I try to start my day with positive affirmations. Think of all of the things that I am lucky to have and all of the things that I have worked to have.
Every single day I write a to-do list. Ideally, I would do this when I start my workday, but realistically, it happens around mid-day. I pick one large task that I usually don’t want to do but absolutely need to do. I also cross everything off my list. There is nothing more satisfying than seeing all that you have accomplished at the end of the day
I text my mom and my grandparents every day. They are always hyping me up, even when I’m not feeling it and after I’m done talking to them I usually feel like I can tackle anything
I’ve found that planning my meals really helps me stay on track. When I eat well, I feel well and can perform in my workouts to the level that I find acceptable. When I don’t, I don’t feel that great even if I do workout. You can workout all you want, but you can’t out work a bad diet. I really should limit the amount of processed foods that I eat because I really do feel the difference. If my meals are planned, there’s not much left to think about the day of, and that keeps me from making “bad” or less than optimal choices. This is a work in progress lol
I keep a journal. I don’t journal every single day, but I do find it extremely therapeutic and relaxing to write things down. I write things that I ate and liked or things that made me upset. I write about different situations and how they have affected me and explore things I should have said or could have done. I criticize my mistakes and try to think of ways to avoid them in the future. I’m not always successful at avoiding them but it helps to acknowledge them. I try to write at least one kind thing about/to myself and let myself know that it’s okay to not be perfect, which is not something I like to hear. I try to identify things that I can do to improve or work on, which is not always easy to acknowledge.
Perfectionism comes in different ways and affects people differently. It’s a part of my depression that is probably the most challenging for me and I’m trying to find ways to cope with it. I feel like we don’t talk about mental health enough and some people are fighting tougher battles. A lot of depressed people don’t “look” depressed so it’s hard to know that they are struggling and sometimes even if you do know that they are struggling with depression they may not want to or be ready to talk about it. It’s incredibly important to pay attention to your friends and check in on them. No, you don’t have to check in every single day, but it’s nice to know that your friends are thinking of you. It takes minimal effort to check in on friends and it can really turn someone’s day around. You may not understand what they’re going through or why they are feeling the way that they are, but you don’t need to. Just being there for them is enough. Be the reason someone smiles today.
If you are battling depression and don’t know how deal with it, just know that you are not alone and that depression affects people differently. It comes in waves for some and for others it’s never ending. There is no right or wrong way to feel “depressed” and you should never feel ashamed of being depressed. Let’s be serious, with our political climate, the past several months specifically, have been enough to drive all of us into depression. For me, journaling works better than talking to a therapist, but for other people, it may be the opposite. The one thing I can recommend and strongly suggest is to not keep it bottled in. For a long, long time, I would just avoid talking about it and I would expect my friends and loved ones to just know how I was feeling and what I was thinking and that’s not really fair. Your friends and family are willing to help but they can’t help if they don’t know. Lastly, just know that you are not alone. If you need someone to talk to outside or your normal circle, you can talk to me.
