You Don’t Have to Be Perfect

Have you ever felt like you’re not quite good enough or the things you do don't quite measure up? Join me, Michele Kus, as we explore some of the tricky aspects of perfectionism, an internal battle many of us quietly face. With personal anecdotes and powerful truths, we shine a light on how perfectionism often prevents us from stepping into our true potential and how we can confront it head on with humor and self-compassion.

Chapters

• 0:27 Text message from Alabama!
• 1:09 You Don't Have to Be Perfect
• 2:58 The Pitfalls of Perfectionism
• 5:00 Not Everything Needs to Be 100%

Transcript

Michele: 0:00

Good morning, it's Tuesday, March 4th, and this is Rise and Reign. Welcome to the Rise and Reign podcast, your five minutes a day, five days a week, burst of morning inspiration. Join me, Michele Kus, every Monday through Friday as I bring you a piping hot, fresh-baked daily Kus word. Yeah, see what I did there? Hello, hello. So I got a text message from Alabama yesterday morning in response to yesterday's episode which said this: "love the episode. It spoke to me as a coach and finding myself drifting into perfection too often, can't wait to hear what you have to share coming up." Well, first of all, thanks Coach from Alabama for texting in.

Michele: 0:50

And yes, perfectionism can be a huge problem for those of us who are kind of naturally bent in that direction. I know it's been a huge problem for me over the years and this is actually such an important topic that I decided to create today's episode around this topic of perfectionism. So I titled this episode: You Don't Have to Be Perfect.

Michele: 1:14

So sometimes perfectionism can come from this place of fear or insecurity. Like you may have had childhood experiences where the love and acceptance from others were kind of contingent upon your performance or your achievements rather than your innate self-worth. But it's not always linked to childhood stress or trauma. Sometimes certain personalities are just wired that way. They tend to lean more perfectionistic, and I know that's definitely the case with me. I'm kind of naturally wired that way. So I've always had to push against this a little bit and I was pretty perfectionistic even as a child. And I remember my parents my mom especially would often do or say little things to kind of help me ease up on myself a little bit. And I remember once when I was in eighth grade I had to bring home this report to be signed by my parents and it had all of A. Who can relate to that? So obviously I was embarrassed but I gave this progress report to my mom to be signed. She looked at it, smiled, wrote some stuff on there and handed it back to me. You want to know what she wrote? She signed her name and then at the bottom she wrote variety is the spice of life! I love it, I'm here for it, and then she put a smiley face.

Michele: 2:57

So I think a lot of us consider perfectionism to be pretty innocuous, like having a hangnail or something. But depending on how pervasive this is, it can actually be pretty destructive in someone's life. So perfectionism itself is all an illusion. It causes us to procrastinate, because if we can put off a project till the very last minute, then we don't have to put any undue pressure on ourselves for it to be perfect, because we just need to like bang it out and power through and get it done right. So it's like this weird mind game that we play with ourselves and it causes us to overthink things. It causes us to project this flawless persona out into the world that we never mess up or make mistakes and that just uses up a ton of psychological energy, not to mention it makes you a not fun person to be around. It causes us to second guess ourselves way too much. It causes us to hold ourselves and others to these high, high standards that are often impossible to live up to. It causes us to be hypercritical of ourselves and sometimes hypercritical of others too, which can be really destructive in relationships. And if we're not careful, it can even cause us to miss our purpose and our potential in life, because hey, if we can't do something perfectly, why even try? If I can't get this perfect, I'm not even going to bother trying. And that's just crazy If you think of a baby who is learning to walk. If they take a step or two and then stumble and fall, they don't say like, oh, you know what, I'm not good at this, I'm just going to go try doing something else. It's like no, that's ridiculous. Like they keep at it and keep at it until they've figured it out.

Michele: 5:00

I heard a coach say once that most things in life do not need to be done at 100%. Okay, your resume needs to be perfect. The book that you are submitting for publication needs to be perfect. When you're making your bed in the morning, it does not need to be perfect. Do you get what I'm saying? And some y'all are probably like what is this making your bed in the morning that you speak of? And if that's you, I say this episode is probably not for you. There are things that should be 100% and there's a lot of things in life that you can get by with 75, 80%, 85%, and it's fine.

Michele: 5:56

So if perfectionism is trying to rear its ugly head in your life, try this. Just say out loud: "I can't do anything unless I can do it perfectly." And then I want you to laugh and laugh and laugh, and laugh, because that is the stupidest lie you've ever heard in your entire life, and then I want you to go ahead and march forth into your purpose. Oh, yes, you knew it was coming March 4th. All right, guys, that's what I got for you today. I hope you enjoyed today's Kus word. Yes, that's a real hashtag I use on my socials. If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with a friend and send me a text message, like the coach from Alabama did. Just click the link in the show notes that says send us a text and you can text me all about some of the ways that you have tried to overcome perfectionism. If that's been a struggle for you. Thanks for joining me today on this perfectly imperfect podcast and I will see you again tomorrow.