Perfection

I always liked school and tests.  In fact, I could live quite happily as a perpetual student.  With a syllabus as my road map and my thirst for knowledge driving me to excel.  Not to mention my perfectionism that catapults my drive, bordering on obsession.  So imagine my surprise when I took an evaluation to see how much of a perfectionist I am and I didn't achieve a perfect score.

Translation:  I'm a failure.

Oh, I know being a perfectionist isn't a good thing.  Because all you can do is fail at it.  Setting up unreasonable expectations and then falling short all the time.  Because I cycle through it all the time.  Nothing I do is ever good enough for me because it can always be better.  I have difficulty seeing things I do well because I dwell, ruminate, fixate and obsess on the myriad of things I'm not good at.  

My inner critic is a condescending perfectionistic bitch.

So, no matter what I do, I'm never good enough for me.  But, here is where I failed being a perfect perfectionist on the test, I don't judge others by my impossible standards.   I double checked with my husband just to make sure I was right on that.  Because while perfectionists can be rigid and 

unforgiving, we're also prone to indecision.   Turns out I was right.  Yay!

Being right is like winning.  

I don't know what I'm winning, but does it matter?  

(Perfectionists may also be extremely competitive.)

Then, I felt kinda validated not getting an "A" in perfectionism because if I did it would be even harder on my friends and family to live with me.  Really, when you think about it, I should have scored better because I'm sparing people around me from my harsh criticism and judgement.  So if you take that into consideration and scored on a curve, I would actually have an "A".   Although that "A" would never be enough to satisfy me.  

Because it's never enough.  

I'm insatiable.

Recommending Reading

  Better than Perfect:  7 Strategies to Crush Your Inner Critic and Create a Life you Love