The Perfection Trap

(Note: If you’d like to listen to this in podcast form, scroll to the bottom!)

It’s November, and that means the holidays are coming up! It’s as good of time as any to talk about perfection and comparison – especially at this time of year when there can be lots of pressure at work and home to, well… basically be perfect.

Look perfect. Act perfect. Put on a show at the party. Send out the perfect Christmas cards.

As I’ve mentioned, I live on an off-grid homestead in the mountains of Utah. We bought this property over three years ago, and I must confess, coming from being true “city slickers”, assuming the mantle of homesteader has been slow-going. Growing up, we hardly ever even went camping. My dad always joked that my mom’s idea of camping was ordering room service at the resort. We didn’t have a garden or anything like that, and no animals other than a dog. My husband experience consisted of some summer trips to his grandparents’ property in rural New York.

I love posting photos of our beautiful property on my blog, in my newsletter, and on Instagram. And you as a follower might look at the photos and think – ah, perfection…

Beautiful trees, amazing landscape, family holding hands walking on their own hiking trails together, flock of free-range chickens, enjoying pastured eggs and farm fresh veggies right from our land every day…

Well, the reality is a not quite like this. Maybe sometimes, but not all the time. Truly living off the land and being self-sufficient is far different from what we’re doing. We are not even close to that.

So today, I thought I’d talk in detail about the trappings of perfectionism and comparison, using myself and my pseudo-homestead as an example.

The reality of how things have gone on our “farm”

• We have 20 chickens, and not one of them has laid any eggs. For reference, chickens typically start laying eggs when they’re 5-6 months. But ours are more than 7 months old. Not one egg yet.
• A few chickens have died for dumb reasons (like getting stuck under the watering bucket).
• Our greenhouse build took forever because in a particularly harsh winter, the top of it caved from snow load. We had to partially rebuild. We finally started growing things in the greenhouse this past summer.
• But I literally know nothing about gardnening. I managed to grow a few little plantlings from seed, but basically everything in the garden ended up being flowers or tomatoes. I honestly don’t know how that happened! We planted berry bushes and harvested one strawberry and two raspberries.
• Our greenhouse has a pond, and you’re supposed to grow water plants and have fish in there. Our pond has empty water. I bought $100 of plants which have all died, and we spent $200 on fish which also died.
• We got ripped off by a guy when we first moved here who sold us a backhoe for a huge sum of money, and it turned out to be a complete lemon. The same guy also didn’t finish a job we really needed done.
• During the second (huge) winter, we lost thousands of dollars of propane when the snow load turned a valve open and emptied one of our thousand gallon tanks

Yep, fun times. There are probably other fails I’m not remembering right now.

Some of my imperfections

Here’s some stuff about me personally that might be different than what you expect. It may look like I’m a mountain minimalist kind of girl who loves to get her hands dirty, when really:

• I go for one week a month to a city where I have a city experience and warmer weather… and I admit that although I’m working when I’m there, it’s a bit of an escape valve for me because sometimes this homestead stuff feels like too much.
• Even when we’re here on the mountain, I buy a lot of stuff from Amazon. I’ve not been very “minimal” for someone who lives in a tiny house.
• I basically made my husband buy a property in our nearby town so we can split our time because the winters just get too hard for me. There are other practical reasons for this that he agrees with, but I’m definitely the force behind this new wrinkle to our living situation, and we’re currently building a house there.

I share with you these realities because I know there is a certain picture you might have of my life.

Anyone’s life, even the richest, most powerful, most beautiful people in this world, has ups and downs. Beauty and turmoil.  

We all have things we’re working towards and things about our lives that we want to improve. But perfectionism is not the same thing as healthy striving or doing things with a value of excellence or integrity.

What is perfectionism?

Brene Brown defines perfectionism as an avoidant, defensive behavior. It’s borne out of the belief that if you do things perfectly, you will avoid shame and judgement.

Here’s why perfection is a poor goalpost:

• Perfectionism is externally focused. It’s about comparison and measuring up. It’s about what other people think of you, as opposed to how you see yourself.
• It also keeps you from trying new things and growing, and puts you in a vicious cycle that keeps you un-confident and holds you back from leaning out.

How do you know if you’re suffering from perfectionism rather than just desiring healthy improvement? Here are a few questions to ask:

• Do you suffer from all-or-nothing thinking. If it’s not perfect, it’s a failure. More on failure in a minute.
• Are you fixated on achieving outcomes or appearances, rather than the process of what you’re doing?
• Do you compare yourself to other people who appear to be meeting crazy high standards? It’s so easy to compare these days with the multiple avenues of social media. That’s why I shared some of the realities of my life in the beginning of this episode.
• Are you afraid to fail, and if you feel like you do have failed, do you have a difficult time getting over it?

Not only will fixating on perfection limit your confidence and your abilities to lean out and find your unique work-life balance… it can also affect your relationships and your ability to get things done at work or at home. Perfectionists are often highly anxious and master procrastinators.

How to deal with perfectionism and comparison

Here are some things you can do to start to shift a mindset of comparison and perfection

Become self-focused. This sounds bad because we are trained to put others before ourselves. It’s ingrained in us as hard-driving professionals, especially in the medical field. But if you want to stop comparing yourself so much to other people, spend some time building a relationship with yourself. This sounds weird, but… fall in love with yourself. Learn or relearn what gives you joy, makes you angry, depletes your energy or fills you with energy.

Practice self-compassion. This is a go-to for me. Sometimes I think about the homestead fails I mentioned and I just cringe. I recently needed to listen to one of the very first episodes of my podcast, and I again cringed. But then I remember that I am human, I am learning how to do all this, and how would I have known otherwise? It’s ok. We all start somewhere. There are many ways to practice self-compassion, but the simplest thing you can do right now is, whenever you’re feeling down because you’re not perfect, ask yourself what you would say to a friend or loved one in this situation. And then say it to yourself while you have your hand on your heart. I’m telling you, this is magic.

Question your rules. Where have your high standards come from? Who made the rules? What would happen if you broke them? At the essence of this is the idea that we can stop, be mindful, and question our own thoughts. They aren’t always true, just like the constraints we place on ourselves for how we look or perform.

Try some exposure therapy. Have you heard of this? If someone is afraid of elevators, maybe they start out by watching videos of elevators or doing a virtual reality where they’re stepping into an elevator. Then they go to an office building and actually step in and out of an elevator… and over time they ride the elevator. To apply exposure therapy to perfectionism, try not meeting a standard. Pick something that isn’t life-or-death important, like let the email go out with some typos in it. OR… (gasp)…. If you’re a physician, finish your patient notes without every single tidbit of information you would normally include in the ultimate, perfect note! Your goal is to try to do B- work instead of always turning out A+ work. If you’re a neat freak, leave a small but visible area of your house messy for a period of time. If you always have to optimize every experience, go out to a restaurant without reading any reviews.

Ironically, these four tips for dealing with perfectionism and comparison are closely related to the elements of confidence I discussed in my podcast episode/article all about confidence. They’re also in my upcoming Lean Out Confidence Course, so if these tips seemed like something you needed to hear today, make sure you get on the interest list for the course here.

Do you struggle with perfectionism and/or comparison? How do you deal with it? Share your tips by leaving a comment below!