The Perfect Trap

Perfection is a trap. My first blog post, What False Comfort Zone Are You In? shared how my recognizing that trap had enabled me to go forward. Well, here I am again. Caught up in the perfect trap.
Framed Rebar by BY-YOUR-⌘, Flickr CC  (I mistakenly attributed the feature photo to the wrong photographer.  Corrected at 0621 on July 23, 2012)

Perfection is a trap. My first blog post, What False Comfort Zone Are You In? shared how my recognizing that trap had enabled me to go forward. Well, here I am again, caught up in the perfect trap.

My day job requires that I am certified in PALS (pediatric advanced life support.) I have to re-certify every two years.  You’d think I’d be used to it by now. I’m not.

To pass this certification one must understand the body’s physiologic response to various medical crises. You must pass a written test AND a re-enactment of several different crises.

Understand that these are things I have rarely had to do in the course of my career (and it ain’t short!). Some of the situations and activities I must re-enact are beyond my scope of practice.

Now, don’t get me wrong. There are good and reasonable reasons why I need to know these things. Many of my patients have medical conditions that are serious and can become life-threatening if not treated promptly and correctly. Not to mention that within the department are nurses who work in the recovery room where they must and DO recognize these medical crises. They work hand-in-hand with advanced nurse practitioners, respiratory therapists, and many other experts.

It’s performance anxiety, I tell myself. I am an introvert. Performing in front of others is not a natural nor comfortable state. In reality, I’m caught in a trap: seeking perfection. I so desperately want to know it all so that I can do it right that I needlessly saddle myself with much more work than is necessary.

Defining Perfectionism

Ah, perfectionism what is it, really? According to Dictionary.com it is “a personal standard, attitude, or philosophy that demands perfection and rejects anything else.” Well, what’s wrong with that?  Perfectionism magnifies the importance of achieving that goal. Rationally, we know that perfect isn’t really possible. But we are going to kill ourselves to make it as perfect as possible. And a single-mindedness on achieving perfection can lead to procrastination (it’ll never be perfect so why try?), bullying (my way or the highway), and low self-esteem (I can’t ever get it right).

At its root, perfectionism often is acquired from parents who were perfectionists, or from parents who were hyper-critical or didn’t give you any feedback at all.  It could be the result of a lack of self-esteem or feelings of inadequacy. It can also very simply be fear of failure.

What perfectionist need to learn is that perfectionism is not the same as the pursuit of excellence.

So how does one cure perfectionism?

Get Out of the Trap

First, if your perfectionism is so severe that it has damaged your relationships with others, consider seeking professional help. If you’re like me and simply drive yourself crazy with your perfectionism, here are some steps you might try.

  • Admit you are a perfectionist. Go ahead. Face the mirror and admit it.
  • What do you want to achieve? (by being perfect or by making this one thing perfect) Write down your answer so you can look at it objectively.
  • Ask yourself what will happen if you DON’T achieve your goal? Make a list of all the negatives and the positives.
  • What will happen if you DO achieve your goal? Who will notice? Write down your answer.
  • Make the decision to change. Mirror time again. Look yourself in the eye.
  • Take one thing at a time. Choose one thing to ‘get wrong.’ Allow yourself to feel how that feels. Write down what happened as a result of doing it ‘wrong.’
  • Forgive yourself for not being perfect. It’s not a perfect world.
  • Give yourself permission to strive for excellence without being perfect

Confession Time! Have you been caught in the perfect trap? What have you done to overcome it? I’d love to hear your stories, even if they aren’t perfect. 

Life – It’s a Balancing Act – Really!

Apparently, 2 011 left a lot of people feeling unbalanced for a lot of reasons. Ever the helpful girl scout, I went in search of all things balanced and discovered, as always, it's a balancing act.I’ve read a lot of blogs during the last week or two that mention a goal or resolution of restoring balance in their lives. Apparently, 2 011 left a lot of people feeling unbalanced for a lot of reasons. Ever the helpful girl scout, I went in search of all things balanced and discovered, as always, it’s a balancing act.

I find webmd.com to be a source of reliable information. Their article: 5 Tips for a Better Work-Life Balance may be helpful to you. I think they are right, we should learn to relax. After all, we could live in Bangladesh and have this guy’s job:

Mayo clinic’s article Work-life balance: Tips to Reclaim Control suggests, among other things, to bolster your support system. I think Henri Fochatin could use a little more support, don’t you? (don’t watch if you have acrophobia, seriously!)

In 5 Essential Zen Habits for Balanced Living, you’re reminded to use awareness and mindfulness, to find some calm in the midst of the madness. How? Allow yourself some downtime. Even just ten or fifteen minutes of time to recharge your inner self. Do what brings you peace. For me, that’s a waterfall in a beautiful setting.
Apparently, 2 011 left a lot of people feeling unbalanced for a lot of reasons. Ever the helpful girl scout, I went in search of all things balanced and discovered, as always, it's a balancing act.

But I think all these articles have missed the mark.
 

Life is chaotic and messy.

Apparently, 2 011 left a lot of people feeling unbalanced for a lot of reasons. Ever the helpful girl scout, I went in search of all things balanced and discovered, as always, it's a balancing act.

Things happen. Suddenly you have to juggle more than one thing at a time.

Apparently, 2 011 left a lot of people feeling unbalanced for a lot of reasons. Ever the helpful girl scout, I went in search of all things balanced and discovered, as always, it's a balancing act.

If you let it, life’s chaos will divert your attention from the things you want to do and from the ones you love. How do you handle it?

With Silliness.

 

Apparently, 2011 left a lot of people feeling unbalanced for a lot of reasons. Ever the helpful girl scout, I went in search of all things balanced and discovered, as always, it's a balancing act.

Apparently, 2011 left a lot of people feeling unbalanced for a lot of reasons. Ever the helpful girl scout, I went in search of all things balanced and discovered, as always, it's a balancing act.

Laugh, even when things are upside down.
Apparently, 2011 left a lot of people feeling unbalanced for a lot of reasons. Ever the helpful girl scout, I went in search of all things balanced and discovered, as always, it's a balancing act.

No matter how small you feel in comparison to the things that keep you from putting your best foot forward, a smile will lift you up.

Make time to have fun.

Apparently, 2 011 left a lot of people feeling unbalanced for a lot of reasons. Ever the helpful girl scout, I went in search of all things balanced and discovered, as always, it's a balancing act.

Most importantly, take a breath. Recognize what you’ve accomplished: the milestones, the successes, the learning that you’ve done, no matter how small. It’s important.

Celebrate!
Apparently, 2 011 left a lot of people feeling unbalanced for a lot of reasons. Ever the helpful girl scout, I went in search of all things balanced and discovered, as always, it's a balancing act.

If in your struggle to find balance, you take the time to do a few of these things, I am certain that you will find

you have soared higher than you think!
Apparently, 2 011 left a lot of people feeling unbalanced for a lot of reasons. Ever the helpful girl scout, I went in search of all things balanced and discovered, as always, it's a balancing act.

It’s a balancing act, this thing we call life. But with all the tools and methods available to you, you can enjoy your balancing act and fly high.

What False Comfort Zone Are You In?

“Life Begins at the End of your Comfort Zone” is a post by Tiva Jones. Tiva owns Creativity Loft, a public relations company that specializes in pr, branding, and marketing for authors, magazines & publishers. (Tiva has closed Creativity Loft and now runs HeyAwesomeGirl.com) Before you start saying ‘old news, I don’t care,’ you might want to think about how a false comfort zone may be holding you back.

Image is of a dog in the covers, all you can see is one eye and an ear, he's in his comfort zone, what false comfort zone are you in?

The biggest safe zone of all . . .

There are all kinds of comfort zones: a neighborhood, a job, a preferred route to drive or walk, a certain group of friends, there is plenty of time to (fill-in-the-blank). Perhaps the biggest comfort zone of all is “Someday.” Lots of people use “someday” as a safe zone. Someday I’ll write a book. Someday I’ll move to Italy. Someday I’ll forgive xxx for what he/she did.

Even us ‘creative’ types have comfort zones: I’ll query an agent someday, I’ll submit my story someday when I learn how to do this one thing . . . .   Yet, someday never seems to come.

Facing Barriers of Your False Comfort Zone

A couple of years ago, I participated in a couple of online writing course: How to Revise Your Novel (HTRYN) and How to Think Sideways (HTTS) by Holly Lisle.* In the HTTS course, Holly refers to something she calls Thinking Barriers: Safe, Perfect, Victim, and Feel. I won’t go into detail about these, but learning how to break these thinking barriers is instrumental to Holly’s course. I thought I learned those lessons, perfectly. NOT.

We use barriers, like Holly’s thinking barriers, to protect us from things we fear. Facing the fear is absolutely essential to finding a way past those barriers. Some fears are important to respect in order to maintain physical and emotional safety. Some fears are really big and they cannot be faced head-on in one step. Look at the fear, the barrier, you’ve constructed. If that fear keeps you from moving forward, from achieving what you want to do, you need to face that fear. There are small steps you can take. Maybe the first step is to read a how-to book. It could be for you to respond to one post. Or perhaps it’s to go to a party and say hi to one new person. If you really want to move forward, I’m certain you will find a way to take that first small step. (If you want to read more about how to move from fear to your dream, read Make Room for Fear and Your Dreams.)

Build on small steps

Between the Holly Lisle Novel Writing School courses and Tiva’s post, I realized I am in the false comfort zone, Perfect. Perfect doesn’t exist. Perfect never finishes. If I wait and I work hard to be PERFECT, I won’t meet you, I will never have a blog, I won’t finish this web site, I won’t finish my book, etc., etc. So — I’m stepping out of my comfort zone.

I read up on how to put together a website. How to publish a blog. And now it’s time. The small steps have led me here. I am putting up this website and blog. I’m posting this, relatively unpolished post (Give me a break! A girl can’t change in the course of 700 words). Soon, I will have novellas and novels for sale on this website. Small steps that will take me to my goal: published stories that are read by people like you.

You know what? Tiva is right. There is power in facing your fears. And there is power in taking small steps. Live outside of your comfort zone.

Explore.

Dream.

Discover.

Disclosure: I am an affiliate of Holly Lisle’s HTTS and HTRYN courses. If you use the buttons on my website, I will get a small cash payment. You do not have to use those buttons. The link in my blogroll to the right will take you directly to the courses listing on her website. Regardless of how you get there, go to Holly’s site. She has many helpful articles and blog posts.

Will you face disappointments in twenty years? Is there a false comfort zone that keeps you from achieving your dreams? What small steps can you take to move out of your false comfort zone, toward your dreams?