Hey there beautiful girl!
What’s that? You looked behind you?
I was talking to you. The perfectionist. The one looking at the ‘fitspiration’ that says ‘suck it in now or suck it in later.‘
Yeah you. The one who is staying up late working on another business plan, another blog post, another batch of healthy, organic, non dairy, no sugar, biscuits. (Spinach hidden successfully).
When did we as women feel like we had to have it all?
And what does having it all even me?
As the questionnaires come in for my life coaching business I see perfectionism is something that a lot of us women struggle with.
Including myself.
Look at me. How can you tell? I’m teaching full time, studying part time (two different courses), and all the while leading various groups and projects. I completed all three of my counselling assignments a month before they were due because I wanted to work thoroughly on them. (Nothing wrong with that though hey girls?)
Sure I love all of those things but the perfectionism in me works ridiculously hard and long hours.
How does perfectionism manifest itself in me?
It includes working on a blog post over and over and contemplating whether it is even good enough to post yet. Mmm… Does it sound too ‘academicy?’ or too ‘conversational?’ What picture should I use? Aaahh… Backspace… Backspace…
It looks like justifying things in emails to people like ‘Excuse my template, I’m still trying to figure out the technological side of the business‘ or ‘My blog post this week is clunky please read it anyways…‘ Please?
It manifests itself in throwing a pity party because I can’t exercise the way I used to due to my ACL reconstruction. Stupid knee.
See how we talk to ourselves ladies? We wear masks and hone our skills to protect what is really beneath. The underlying emotion of perfectionism.
Fear of failure, fear of rejection and self doubt. We think that perfectionism is our best selves.
How we think perfectionism is our best selves.
We have an image in our mind about how things should be. We thrive on what people think about us and because of that we continue to work on our ‘perfect selves.’
Oh we’ve become good at it haven’t we?
We believe the lies that are perpetuated in society that to be beautiful you must do x, y, z.
We do things that other people do because they look perfect, like meditate, yoga and drink green smoothies… (There’s a good article here called: Why I’m playing Hookie from the Meditation Mat” here).
But seriously we think that in doing these things that this is our better selves. Our ‘onlyness,’ as what I’ve been learning about in my “Beautiful You Life Coaching” course we deny. Our ‘onlyness’ is what makes you, YOU. Instead of embracing ourselves we end up manifesting perfectionism into our lives. We crave attention, approval and acceptance.
Embracing You
The mask slips…
We need confidence. It’s a precious trump card in our process of attraction. We need to remind ourselves of the qualities that define us. Are you charming, vivacious, persistent? What makes you… well YOU?
What would it feel like to love yourself more?
What are you wasting your time with?
What do you actually like doing? Like really. And don’t say it’s making those spreadsheets at 1:00 AM. The ones that you are hoping your boss will like. Do you like cross stitch, reading those daggy magazines, or dancing to Justin Beiber?
Well do it girl! If that’s what it is that makes you, YOU then go ahead and dance your little heart out.
Embrace your ‘YOU’ and put that perfectionism on the side for now. You’ll need parts of it for that injection of spunk in your new project or dream. You think being perfect is your authentic self but it’s not. So figure out what it is!
I’ve been working heaps on my perfectionism. I’ve been slowly learning how to let it go.
And if you’re not sure on how to let your perfectionism go then you are more than welcome to come and explore your little heart’s desires with me. I have some limited spaces available for coaching. Feel free to go on over to my “Work With Me” page for further details. I’d love to explore some gorgeous options with you.
YOU ARE WORTH IT!
