Today’s video is about perfectionism and how by striving to be perfect, we are actually screwing up something pretty major. I’m Stacy Rocklein and I help people love themselves more fully so that they are able to love unconditionally in their relationships and receive the love that is trying to get to them.
So perfectionism. This is almost an epidemic and so many people suffer this desire to be perfect. And so many people who don’t think that they are perfectionists are actually doing exactly the same thing because if you’ve got a number on a scale that you’re going for, a dollar amount that you want to bring in, a number of likes or follows on social media that you’re looking for, that is a standard that most of the time we are falling short of. We’re striving but not arriving, which means you’re holding yourself to your perfect, your standard, but not getting there.
And that’s the problem with perfectionism, right? You can’t be perfect. And so by pushing towards perfection, we hold ourselves in a state of not good enough all the time. Until I get there, I’m not going to be good enough where I’m at now. Getting it perfect is impossible. You can’t do it. You cannot get your entire life perfect. Your career perfect. Your family perfect. Your relationship perfect. Your parenting perfect. Your personal development perfect. It’s impossible.
So if you’re always going for that and you can’t arrive there across the board, then you hold yourself in this state of not good enough. And when we feel like we’re not good enough, we don’t love ourselves where we’re at, we’re waiting to get there so that we can give ourselves love, so that we can deserve the love of the world and the people in our lives. The crazy thing is that that’s not gonna happen, so it’s perpetual that we feel not good enough.
But here’s the good news. The good news is that this experience of being human and this experience of screwing up and of breaking our promises to ourself and falling short and making mistakes and failing, that means we’re doing it right. We’re doing human right. That’s part of this experience were supposed to be, having the variety of experiences and some of those are the screw ups.
So let’s think about this as kind of like the B+. If you have a B+ and you’re going for perfection and if you’ve ever been a kid who wanted to get a good grade or was a really good student and really hung up on perfection, you go in for the B+ and you want all the points and you want a hundred percents and you want to get perfect on everything, only positive feedback and you’re going for that and you’re here at B+ because human and so you’re striving, striving, striving, striving, and never arriving. Always feeling like you’re a failure in some way and not worthy. You can go that route. That’s the route so many of us pick.
Or you can be sitting in your B+ space and you can be striving for stuff. Have big dreams you know want, get to the numbers, but know that on the scale of perfection you’re not gonna get better than a B+ and on the scale of humanity that is your straight A. Messing up IS your straight A.
So when you have a mistake or a failure or anything like that, welcome them in and you can say, yes, I’m doing it. I’m doing this perfectly because I’m falling short of where I want to go. Good job. Welcome those things in. Get excited. Get excited because you are doing human right, right? You are, and you can love yourself right now.
Whatever grade you’re going to give yourself, you can love yourself right now. Go for what you want, but your evidence here right now in this moment is that you’re doing this perfectly and are completely and totally worthy of your own love of yourself and definitely of the love of other people.
Just a different viewpoint so to speak. So if you know somebody who gets hung up trying to be perfect and is just so hard on themselves because they’re never there and they’re never arriving and they’re always finding themselves not good enough, share this with them so that they can realize that on humanity’s grading system, they are a straight A student and doing this perfectly. Thank you for watching. See you next time.