Overcoming Perfectionism: Start where you are with what you have

“Sis, when are you starting the new fitness plan that you discussed with your lifestyle consultant? It’s already two weeks and you are yet to show any signs of starting?” Bisi had visited Enitan for one reason only – to drag her friend like a ‘tiger generator’ and get her to take action.

Enitan was called Miss Perfection. Everything had to be perfect for any project she was involved in to take off; all the answers had to be available and all the tools present. In this particular instance they had gone for their annual routine medical check-up and all her numbers were spiralling out of control. She wasn’t shocked as she knew that she had not been paying attention to her selfcare; work had been long and hard and something had to give, in this case it was her health.

Her company had paid for her to see a lifestyle consultant to help her draft a plan to restore her back to health and even though that had been done, she was yet to start. She was told to eat a lot of vegetables and she couldn’t find the ones in the recipes she had gotten. Many of them were imported and with the current forex issues, most stores were not stocking them anymore. Besides, her current workstation was in a semi-rural community so the issue of sustainability was on the table too.

Bisi had suggested that she contacted the consultant to suggest local alternatives, afterall green vegetables were green vegetables but Enitan wanted her meal plans to be perfect. Two weeks into the plan, nothing had started. She knew that without some ‘radical dragging’ her friend’s perfectionism would ground her completely.

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“Sis, come to think of it oh, you have been doing this your perfectionist thing since secondary school and one would have thought that you’d have overcome it by now. I thought all that fussiness was a teenage thing. Do you think you need to start doing something about it?”

Enitan knew that Bisi was right. She was never one to do anything if it wasn’t perfect, and she had been like that for as long as she could remember, even before secondary school. She remembered how in primary school she used to get flogged for failing even a single question in Mathematics.

It was not ok to even say you planned to improve next time as there were no second chances. She was told that the memory of the flogging would help her to remember all the steps in the equation. The fear of failure and a strong desire to avoid soon spread to other subjects and she easily topped her classes.

She thought long and hard about it. There was nobody to flog her anymore but she realised that she still punished herself mentally whenever she fell short of her standards. She just didn’t let herself fail in any way and her perfectionist stance had made her to shut down many ideas she’d had before even implementing them. But what would really happen if she committed to starting and improving along the way since she had identified her main issue to be the fear of flogging?

“Bisi, I think I will go with your suggestion. I’ll just start with what is available and fill in the gaps as I go along. Let me try this your method of continuous improvement and see what will happen even though this is not my usual style”, Enitan said to her friend.

“Thank you for saving me the stress of dragging you like ‘I-pass-my-neighbour’ generator. This life is for living and adjusting on the go, not for staying stuck because we want everything to be perfect before we set out”, Bisi replied with a chuckle.

Many people are stuck in the perfection trap because of past experiences that created a mindset that is intolerant of failure. The truth is that even the most perfect plans will still need adjustments when rolled out, as upgrading and continuous improvement are never-ending processes. Step out today, begin with what you have and correct as you go on. You will achieve your goal faster. CHEERS.