The end of March already, how can that be! We are wrapping up an EXCELLENT month in the Coaching Academy on Perfectionism, and it’s been such an incredible month of progress and change I thought I’d share something helpful and practical on it for you today.
Here’s the thing: perfectionism is an EXPECTATION MANAGEMENT EXERCISE in disguise. It’s setting a standard we can never reach consistently. Here are a few examples… see if one (or more) resonates for you:
Life will be PERFECT when you get that promotion…and then you get it… but then… it’s not perfect YET, because you could do it better, or faster, etc. So… the goalposts of perfect move.
Or things will be PERFECT when you lose those 5kgs. And you lose them! BUT…you still don’t feel perfect YET because your bum is not round enough / nose is too big / etc. The goalposts of perfect move.
Or Life will be PERFECT when the kids are old enough to go to school…but then… they are and they do… but it won’t be perfect UNTIL they are really settled… and then they settle but it won’t be perfect til they…etc
Or we will feel financially secure when the credit card is paid off… but then it is… but we won’t feel secure til we get that pay rise… and then we do… but then we won’t feel really secure till we have the mortgage paid off… etc.
Do you see… the goalposts of perfect move and move and MOVE…
We never get to feel like we have “arrived” in the “perfect” moment when the goalposts keep moving. And that is what perfectionism does… it keeps us in a state of PERMANENTLY STRIVING.
And you don’t need me to tell you, living in a state of perpetually striving is absolutely exhausting.
If we could see life just as a series of moves that EXPAND US, IMPERFECTLY, in a forwards motion… rather than trying to reach perfect but never getting there either at all (or for more than 25 seconds) it would be a MUCH more realistic and PEACEFUL way to live 
.
- Think EXPANSION rather than perfection
- It’s an EXPECTATION MANAGEMENT GAME – lower the bar and be more reasonable.
- Stop moving the goalposts on YOURSELF!
Has that given you a new way to think about Perfectionism Test? I’d love to know right here. And if you want to work on it, I’d love to see you in the Academy here with all the tools and all the support and all the smarts you could ever need.
