It's good to be ambitious and want something with the life you've been given. It's also good to have dreams and desires and to do things as well as you can in different areas of life.
But just stop for a moment and ask yourself if you might have set the bar too high
Do you feel like what you do is never really good enough? That you could actually do it a little better. That everything should ideally be perfect, and if it's not, then it's simply not satisfactory. Are you holding the whip over yourself and maybe being too hard on yourself? Do you get disappointed in your own performance if it's not absolutely perfect?
For whose sake should the bar be set so high and why? We hear about straight-A students and perfectionists, and at the same time, more and more people are breaking down and becoming stressed.
So much identity is tied up in doing everything perfectly. Who are you if you're not identified with being flawless? And what does this perfectionism actually cover? Is it a fear that the world will discover that you're not good enough as you are? Or does perfectionism serve as a cover for something painful that you carry within you?
When the bar is set too high, it doesn't leave much room to enjoy life because the focus is on everything needing to be done better
The bar is set at 100%, maybe even 200%, but how about entertaining the idea of setting it to 90%, or even daring to go to 85%? Maybe it's not entirely perfect, but is it really not good enough? And what's the benefit of lowering the bar a bit? Maybe you can better feel yourself and feel joy in life instead of working yourself half to death. When the bar is set so high, it's also at the expense of enjoying life. The price of perfectionism suddenly becomes too high.
Life can be more nuanced with room for making mistakes. Not everything needs to be picture-perfect. It can be a tough hurdle to lower the bar a little, but it can also help increase the quality of life in a different way. Could there possibly be a gift in letting go of the perfect and allowing imperfections to show, perhaps to discover that it's not so dangerous after all? And try to think about all the time that suddenly becomes available, performance anxiety that loosens its grip, and a sense of being present in the moment that emerges. A feeling of being yourself with all that it entails, where there's room to make mistakes - yes, to be human. A feeling of freedom.
I have encountered perfectionism as a survival strategy in different phases of my life. When my children were small, it was very important to me that my home was neat, and especially when my children had birthdays, it was important to me to serve a buffet filled with homemade treats, all perfectly arranged. After all, there was no one in my social circle who should be able to criticize me as a mother. The truth was, I was completely exhausted and also received a loving remark that less could also suffice. And it was so true. Because the reality was, if I had set the bar lower, it would have been just as cozy, and I wouldn't have been completely worn out.
So, lower the bar, enjoy life, be present for your children, and let the dust bunnies fly. It's not so dangerous to let go, but it's more dangerous to realize later in life that you missed precious moments because you were too fixated on being perfect.
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