From My Substack: Embrace Your Inner Perfectionist

When you hear the word “perfectionist”, what words or phrases come to mind?

I’ll give you a minute…

Okay, here’s my list of words: bad, crippling, getting in my own way, another flaw to be fixed, a dangerous trait that must be defeated or slayed or stomped out (pick your preferred violent term), and, my personal favorite, yet another thing to beat myself up over.

And here’s a smattering of book and article titles a quick internet search pulls up: How to Defeat Perfectionism, Conquering Perfectionism, The Perfectionist Trap, Paralyzed by Perfectionism, The Curse of Perfectionism…

One article claims the key to beating perfectionism is to lower your standards.

Ugh.

I don’t know about you, but all this makes me want to crawl under my desk and chew my hair.

Because, yeah. My name is Erin, and I am a Perfectionist.

I’m also someone who’s deeply suspicious anytime something is universally condemned (or universally accepted). That usually means something complex, and possibly rich and nuanced and fascinating, has been flattened into a beige pancake.

Yes, there’s a dark side to perfectionism. To say it’s ability to paralyze us is well-documented is an understatement. But – and this is where my curiosity starts sparking – if there’s a dark side, doesn’t that mean there’s a bright side, too? I mean, you can’t have a dark side without a bright side. Can you?

Is it really all doom-and-gloom, all the time? Do I really have to be on my guard constantly, ready to beat perfectionism back, again and again?

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