Confessions from a Recovering Perfectionist
Hello, my name is Michelle, and I’m a perfectionist.
I have been known to write, rewrite, delete, start again, and tweak something for months and months and still not feel it is good enough about it to release it. I think this is by far one of the main “traits” or archetypal patterns that squashes my success and productivity more than anything.
Don’t get me wrong, a little of this trait is a good thing. Striving for perfection helps me to “produce” an end product that I love, am proud of, and think is the best work I can offer to support my clients, friends, and family. However, too much of this archetype has the power to absolutely kill my creativity, hold my self-esteem hostage, and pretty much stop me dead in my tracks so that NOTHING gets done.
The dark side of being a perfectionist is that it can often switch from helping me produce a great end product to becoming the voice that fuels fear, procrastination, crippling self-doubt and judgments, and creates a virtual dam system in my inner guidance. When my perfectionist is up in full force nothing, and I truly mean nothing, is good enough. I will sit on a blog post, a video, an email for days, weeks, months, and even years.
So how do you overcome the death grip of the perfectionist?
Whenever there is something that I want to change or heal I always go to implementing our 4 stage process:
(Side note – healing and change isn’t typically liner. You’ll find that you might bounce around in these stages and rinse and repeat as needed ☺)
I’d love to share my latest run-in with the “perfectionist” as an example to walk you through what the process could look like.
She showed up big time for me with putting together and producing my new project, Connecting with Joy. This project is a new podcast. I am launching this month and I’m so excited and happy about it! And it almost didn’t happen thanks to this lovely trait.
A little background for you. I first had the idea of putting together a podcast in July of 2019 after I launched my first online conference, The Power of Partnering with Horses for Healing. Wow was I ready to go full steam ahead on this new project! I made a list of topics I wanted to cover, colleagues I wanted to reach out to as guests, and was also rocking out my project planning and the timeline for it. Then in October of 2019, I slammed on the brakes. Cue the perfectionist and her best friend doubt via the “imposter” syndrome. First, she spoke to me in whispers like, “You don’t know how to produce a podcast. Who do you think you are to try and do a podcast? You don’t have the right equipment, or even know what equipment you need.” Blah, blah, blah. The voice became relentless and smothering. I backed down from my project, and instead decided I needed to gathering more education and more info to make sure I “do it right”. While this sounds like a great logical move, for me it wasn’t at all. When I feel like I’m going to be doing something new that might make me vulnerable to failure, judgments, and so on, I use the “need” to gain pieces of training and education as a hole to hide in. I know this pattern so well. However, the fear of getting it wrong, it not being good enough, or people judging what I put out there overrode me and I convinced myself I needed more knowledge first. I didn’t have faith in myself. I was too swayed by the voice of you have to get it right or don’t do it at all. So I did nothing.
Awareness and Acceptance
Once I finally catch sight that the old energy patterns were back up and running in full force the first step was to admit that I was out of balance. I started to explore what she was up to and what she needed to come back into balance. I also know from history that working this trait is too overwhelming for me to take on solo, I’m too good at finding loopholes in my action plans with it because they are all very logical. I recruited help and support from my personal coach and spiritual director to help hold the space with me as I leaned in and began to listen to my fears at a deeper level.
Listening to the way archetypes speak to you and getting to know their patterns helps give you insights into what actions you need to take to heal and change old patterns.
I know that my perfectionist likes to team up with my saboteur. Together they tend to tag team me. For me, my secret weapon in this process is to practice self-compassion and bring in a little (or a lot) of humor. For example, laughing at the chickens that have decided to be as loud as they can in the background while I’m trying to record and instead of throwing out the whole thing rolling with it and so on.
Action
In addition to doing the healing shadow work, I created an action item that started to bring me closer to being in balance that I could start doing right away without an influx of time, money, or resources. Mine was to share my blogs, videos, and other content even if I didn’t think they were perfect. I allowed myself the gift of sharing my best version at that moment. I gave myself permission to reflect and make a few tweaks but then to release it when I felt guided to. I committed myself to this exercise and dove back into the vulnerability of letting my work shine flaws and all.
Accountability
In addition to my own reflection and accountability, I asked my team to help hold me accountable both for producing AND holding compassion for myself as I got to know my perfectionist and her needs. While I was writing, sharing, recording videos, going through what I call the “earth school” stuff I was also noticing and holding a space for the Perfectionist to share with me what was calling to be healed.
I’d love to say the process yielded awesome, stellar, near-perfect results in everything I’ve done! And in some way it absolutely did ☺ But not in a traditional way. As I look at the different “products” I have rolled out over the last few months I can totally pick them apart, judge them, and go down a rabbit hole of negative self-talk around them. I started back saying umm, and you know what I mean in videos again – ugh, it took what felt like years to get that out of my videos, and now it is back…and I still am releasing them, imperfections and all. It isn’t always easy, sometimes every fiber of my little perfectionist being is saying record it again, and again, and again.
This four-stage process for change helps me to create momentum around what Fr. Richard Roar calls the “right action”. He teaches that it is the mix of contemplation and action together that help to ultimately bring us in alignment with our soul’s divine purpose. For me, my ultimate “why” with anything I do is to be of service to others. Every time I released something that I feel guided to produce I am overcoming the shadow side of a perfectionist. With each little win, I reclaim my power, step more into my purpose, and am able to actively support others and myself. I also increase my confidence and momentum to believe that I can release myself from this compulsion.
So my top tips to those who might need to join my perfectionist support group are:
- Get to know what is behind that nagging voice as a doorway toward balance. What is it up to? What is it trying to “prevent”?
- Bring a little kindness and humor to yourself to help give you some distance from taking yourself too seriously. For me, humor and compassion free up the monkey mind so that I can drop into my heart space and connect to my big “Why”.
- Remembered the original WHY you are doing something so that you can move into the correct action. Your “WHY” is the pure high octane fuel that will help you rock out the best you can at that moment.
- Embrace the concept of practice or striving versus getting to a destination. This shift allows you to release control and see the imperfections as part of the journey ☺
I hope this blog helps you start to gain some traction on shifting any project that might feel stuck in a holding pattern too. If you are like me and grow and heal better in connection check out the coaching and mentoring programs we have to support you in unbridling your WHY and stepping into the soul’s amazing power.
Sending light and love on your journey, “flaws” and all!
