Do Not Allow The Need to be Perfect to Slowly Burden Your Life
The need to be perfect is an illusion and will lead to certain failures. Trust me, the people who know and love you know you are not perfect. Perfection is not needed to be accepted by good friends and family. Just ask them and they will tell you that.
You don’t need to be perfect to be accepted. Actually, if you were perfect your life would be a living hell. In this post, I will explore why many of us feel the need to be perfect, why it is always destructive and some strategies for letting go of that need and enjoying life more.
The Negative Effects Caused By The Need to be Perfect
If you were perfect you would be pursued and hounded by many people, groups, and organizations. You would be even more popular than Kim Kardashian West. LOL.
At best you would end up as a government science experiment. Lock in a cage being poked and prodded to divulge your secrets.
Jesus was close to perfect as any man that ever lived and look what happened to him. Harboring the need to be perfect can be a destructive force in your life, almost as much as being perfect.
We all are perfectly imperfect by design. Human diversity is our strength. Avoid putting impossible demands on yourself at work, at home, and in personal relationships.
The need to be perfect usually ends in disappointment, stress, and unneeded suffering.
The unyielding demand for the need to be perfect some people place upon themselves usually spills over to other aspects of life. For example, when you place those same unreasonable demands on family and friends it destroys relationships. People begin to not like being around you.
People Hate to See Human Perfection Coming
They even begin to hate to see you coming. You only see them if they don’t see you’re coming first. LOL. Installing the need to be perfect in children can yield the most devastating negative effects.
We have all seen this behavior in action and felt powerless to do anything about it. We all know nothing is perfect. Dhu! So why do people falsely pursue it? Many feel the need to be perfect to be accepted. They feel that if they are perfect they will be in control.
In our society perfection is associated with high-level accomplishment. people believe that comes with an automatic sense of admiration, security, and predictability. The need to be perfect acts as a safeguard against the pain, frustration, disappointment, heartache, e, and irritations of our day-to-day lives.
For instance, when the need to be perfect is allowed to prevail unchecked it will certainly lead to destructive self-judgment, self-abuse, and regret. There is no other possible result.
Perfection is impossible and imperfect.
Perfectly Imperfect is Your Power
The need to be perfect is not all bad. When controlled it can be a powerful motivation propelling you to succeed. Once you understand nothing is perfect and your acceptance by others should not demand it you are on your way to healthy relationships.
Your attempts to be perfect will yield varying results depending on many variables. Your preparation, abilities, health, and many other variables will affect your progress. Just be OK with the results if you have done your best.
Remember others are affected by the same variables in different ways, don’t judge yourself and more importantly others too harshly for not achieving your desired results.
You are not in control and the need to be perfect will not compensate for that. None of us are ever in full control of our circumstances and we just deal with that. Just do your best and control what you can.
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“Lord, grant me the strength to accept the things I cannot change,
he courage to change the things I can,
and the wisdom to know the difference.”
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For instance, when you give up the need to be perfect you acknowledge and accept with brutal honesty that you are not in control and that is a great first step. You will stop hiding behind the need to be perfect knowing you will fail to avoid daily realities.
These are the grounding principles to build a solid foundation. Being truly grounded with your true self requires it. You can now make sense of the rush of emotions that life brings.
You can enjoy, accept and reject them without the burden of feeling the need to be perfect.
Is the need to be perfect burdening your life? Has the need to be perfect ever burdened your life? Do you know anyone who is being burdened by the need to perfect by someone in their life?
Please leave a comment below.
Amazing article my friend! I can’t agree with you more that perfect doesn’t even exist. Growing up we tend to see celebrities on T.V, looking their best and performing their best. But in reality, they aren’t ALWAYS like that, they feel what we feel, they act how we act behind closed doors. We all get caught up in trying to copy them, but all along we are fighting against nothing, because there’s nothing to fight for. I enjoyed your perspective on this, thanks for the informative article 🙂
Totally true. I happen to have a bit of this characteristic and sometimes it’s very annoying. It seems that I take life very seriously and that everything has to be perfect. I already knew and this article also helped me to understand this.
Thank you
Thanks for your comment David. The need to be perfect is a common trait among successful people. I am sure you have learned if you are not too hard on yourself and other people you can use it as an advantage.