Perfectionism

More than once lately people have pointed out to me that I am too much of a "perfectionist". I know I'm not perfect, but why do I always feel like I should be. I suppose we are taught to follow the Savior's example and He was a perfect man, so perhaps this is were that desire stems from, but I also know that I will never reach perfection in this life.

As I thought more about this, I searched the topic of perfectionism tonight on lds.org. One of the first articles that popped up was the following, Confessions of a Perfectionist. The first  few paragraphs sound identical to my life and state the following...

"I started life as a perfectionist. My mother tells stories of my color-coded closet and sock drawer. If I had order, I felt I had control. Even as a child I was passionate about life and the successes I would make for myself.

I married at a young age in the temple, and we had four children in six years. With the birth of each new baby, I obsessed about losing weight and exercised myself down to my pre-pregnancy size and sometimes even smaller.

I worked from sunup until sundown trying to keep my house a place of order. When people visited, I felt sure they thought I was lazy because my home was not perfect. Though my mother often told me, “You wouldn’t worry so much about what people thought of you if you understood how infrequently they do think about you,” I believed that people were judging me as harshly as I judged myself. I would make excuses. It was a source of embarrassment and heartache, so I tried harder to keep things clean and orderly."

 

She goes on to talk about going back to school with children and wanting to keep a 4.0 and then working afterwards to help with finances. She states that there was so much to do and that she would "wake each morning and pray that I could accomplish everything on my “to do” list, only to be discouraged as I dropped into bed after midnight." I was shocked to see how hard this sister was on herself, but realized that she is so similar to myself it's almost unreal.

 

Many days I wake up and one of the first lines in my morning prayer is, "please help me accomplish all I need to do today". I then go about my day in a fast and somewhat obsessive state. I know there is much to be done and everytime I sit down to relax by reading or looking on the internet I berate myself for not working. The thing I realized tonight and probably the worst part, is the fact that I don't want anyone else in my family to relax either. I get irritated when others are enjoying themselves while I'm still working. I want my house to be perfect and I want them to help me make it perfect. But is it necessary? Of course not. Mopping the floor once a week is sufficient, and the other 2 times could be spent playing a game with my kids or spending some extra time snuggling with Makenzie. Wes mentioned the other night that I should spend more time being silly with the kids, he is right and perhaps as I do this there will be less arguing between them and me because I won't be so frustrated when they aren't working.

 

This sister finishes out the article by sharing 7 ways to find peace in this journey to perfection.

1. Pray for guidance. Many of our choices as Latter-day Saints are between good things. Prayer can help us discern our best possible options.
2. Don’t compare yourself to others. Chances are you compare your weaknesses to other people’s strengths.
3. Be gentle with yourself. Christ is a gentle teacher. He is gentle with us, and we also need to be gentle with ourselves. Acknowledge you are doing the best you can. Be accepting of your efforts and those of others.
4. Forgive yourself. If you fall backward—brush yourself off and start where you left off. All is not lost.
5. Don’t worry what others are thinking of you. It is really only important that you know how the Lord feels about you.
6. Acknowledge the fruits of your labors. Write them down in a journal. Even during the Creation of the earth, the Lord acknowledged the beauty and effectiveness of his tasks each day: “God saw that it was good” (Gen. 1:12).
7. Be thankful. We know that Heavenly Father wants us to be happy. “Men are, that they might have joy” (2 Ne. 2:25). Rejoicing in Christ and in our many blessings is the best way to show gratitude. A daily closing prayer is a great opportunity to thank the Lord for all your abundance.

I particularly like number 2 and 6. I know that I have a bad habit of comparing myself to others. This only makes me work harder to be perfect and the problem is none of us can be strong/perfect in everything. There  is not enough time in the day. We all have weaknesses, we will always have things to work on, we have to, if we didn't we wouldn't be here on the earth. I also know that as I have taken the time to write things down the last few weeks, I have felt a little better about myself. Some of my best journal entries have been the ones where I go through my day to see all I accomplished. I may not have accomplished everything, but most of the time I'm able to see what was completed and that most of the time it was a lot! When I do this I'm usually not so hard on myself and am able to have a more grateful attitude.

 

Perfectionism is not a bad thing, in many ways it is exactly what we should be striving for, but we can't let it overtake us and drive a wedge between ourselves and the ones we love. My goal this week is to focus less on perfection and more on just doing my best. I'll finish with Elder Wirthlin's quote for this is my new motto, "We don’t have to be perfect today. We don’t have to be better than someone else. All we have to do is to be the very best we can.” May we all find peace within knowing that none of us has to be perfect today.