FIGHTING PERFECTIONISM
What's Your Defense Mechanism?
I admit it. I’m a recovery perfectionist.
When I was young, I took the hem out of my 4-H skirt three times because all the stitches weren’t the same length. Of course, there were multiple holes around the bottom of that masterpiece after that. And my mind blacked out completely during a speech competition once because I forgot one word I had memorized. In my high school English class, I redid my character analysis of Pip in Great Expectations so many times I forgot what I wrote.
I don’t know if it all started back when I was in elementary school or not. But I’m suspicious it was my parents’ fault. Ha! Ha! You see, in the old days, parents had to sign your grade card. The only way my dad would sign mine was if I got straight A’s. So most 6 weeks, I drudged back to school carrying my grade card with “Mary E. Zischkau” written in the place for Parent’s Signature. I kinda thought I was a loser back then -- because I got A’s AND B’s.
Over the years, I finally realized I was using perfectionism as a defense mechanism. I could shield myself from feeling inadequate if I tried to do everything “just right.” But eventually having to stay up all night numerous times to rerecord a video because I stuttered over one word, to remake a poster because a letter slanted one way more than the others, and to start over with a new recipe because it looked funny — became exhausting.
I was grateful when the lightbulb finally came on during a classroom discussion. (I’ve always said I learned more from my students than they ever did from me.) We were talking about people using different ways to protect themselves from unhealthy stress and negative emotions. I tried to make it simple for the kids by saying those defense mechanisms were like “band aids for the heart” — and they could actually prevent healing if used too much. Right there in the middle of a list of possible defense mechanisms — denial, repression, joking, projection, self-medication, rationalization, perfectionism, overworking, acting out, lying, procrastination, fetishes, justification, acting like you don’t care — I saw myself.
Self-awareness is a great thing. I was cured.
Well, not exactly. Although I’ve become more self-accepting, more self-confident, less emotional and less stressful as I’ve aged, I almost fell off the perfectionism wagon just a few days ago. I had to laugh after I talked myself off the edge.
I had been out in our garage for about three days painting a cutout of The Beatles to promote a project I’m working on. Somehow mixing paints to "Here Comes the Sun,” really brightened my day. I even snuck out one night to add another effect. I loved how it turned out. I couldn’t wait to show my husband.
“Honey, come look. I’m finally done.”
“Oh, that’s REALLY good, Jan,” he said. “But that one guitar should only have four strings.”
“What?! I thought you said guitars had six strings.”
“I’m pretty sure that Beatle played the bass. Basses only have four strings. But it doesn’t matter.”
“Doesn’t matter?! Now, what am I going to do? What will people think?”
I paced around the garage for awhile, trying to figure out how I was going to make it right without making a mess of it. Then it hit me. I started to laugh. My tendency toward perfectionism, not wanting to appear flawed, had reared its ugly head.
What was I thinking? The cutouts were actually missing faces and fingers, for heaven sakes. I had to make club-like hands because I’m not good at drawing things in perspective. The Liverpool Four were only 3 1/2 feet tall so kids could reach the empty spaces. And I cared if people would criticize me for having the wrong number of strings on that guitar??? I’m still laughing and celebrating my continuing recovery.
So if you think you’re using a defense mechanism too much, try to recognize and accept your patterns of protecting your emotions; then you can work on changing your self-sabotaging thoughts. Wiggle with me. It may be a life-long battle, but…
It’ll Be OK.
~~~
“Some days you eat salads and go to the gym. Some days you eat cupcakes and refuse to put on pants. It’s called balance.” ~Pinterest
Oh goodness. Here we are on the same wave length once again. I recently made the discovery that I have spent my whole life finding my confidence in my accomplishments. Not to brag, but I've always done a lot of things well. Probably because I chose to do things that I was good at. I was very socially NOT confident but I could fake it via my achievements. Now I have to figure out how to be confident in who I am and not just what I do. I guess we're never to old to learn something new about ourselves. Perfectionism has been how I coped through the years and probably stifled a lot of great experiences because they wouldn't be "perfect". So here we are wiggling together!
I have the disease of perfectionism. So much so, I'm on heaven knows how many side hustles, because what I create isn't good enough to share let alone sell. I am an artist at heart, but perfectionism stole the show long ago... funny enough, it was in home economics class where it all began. Like you I was learning to sew a dress and couldn't get the arms straight, or even the same length. Honestly, I took on too ambitious of a project, considering my mother didn't know how to sew either. Together we struggled cutting the pattern, putting the pieces together, and finally, when it was time to turn the project in for grading my mother refused to let me turn it in, haha. She said she'd rather see me get a failing grade than turn in something so disgraceful. I don't remember how that sad story ended but what I learned from that particular experience was that my mother handed down her curse of perfectionism, and it has plagued me since. Recently I gave myself permission to make bad art. It's kinda fun deliberately messing up and not worrying about it. :) Now about the strings...