163 Why You Choose to Be a Perfectionist

Hey, this is Anne with your Coaching on the Go. 

We’re continuing to talk about rules because it’s so, so fun, right? 

We’re talking about these rules because it’s the foundation of how you operate. 

And if you discover on a regular basis that you’re doing something that you say you wouldn’t do anymore, or that you don’t like, or that someone else used to do to you or around you and you hated it, and you’re repeating it, it’s likely in your rules. 

It’s likely in those rules that you chose to adapt by default, that you didn’t put thought into those, you just accepted those. 

So this week I’m going to go deeper and talk about a variety of different types of rules. 

And if you’re not getting the daily content and you want to go deeper, send me an email and we’ll talk about how you can get hooked up with that.

But this week, we’re going to go deep, and today I’m starting with rules around perfectionism.

So if you find yourself every so often saying you’re a perfectionist, and then you’re finding yourself also procrastinating because you’re a perfectionist, you get to look at your rules around it. 

Also, if you’re being rude to people, or inconsiderate or demanding on other people and you’re blaming it on perfectionism, we get to talk about that today. 

So I have a little perfectionist thing that I discovered in the last ten years or so.

As the holidays would draw near, I would start to plan for the holidays, and I would discover that just after I would start getting sick, I was exhausted. And then pretty soon I would be exhausted even in the middle of the holiday, and in the last decade I would start to get sick even before the holiday, even before I started planning the holiday, just when I started thinking of it.

And it was rooted in this level of perfectionism, that I gave myself absolutely no wiggle room in how perfect and organized and delicious my holiday meal was going to be. 

It was going to be better than anybody’s, always. 

It was going to be the rare treat, and there was going to be nobody who surpassed me in the family.

And I didn’t even know that it was like that until I really started looking at it when I was feeling sick, what it was about. 

So when you have a perfectionistic tendency, I want you to look at what it’s protecting you from, or what is the root of it? 

What is it really about? 

What is it for? 

As I started to look in, I had two sides of it.

One side was that I had a grandfather that I adored, that always created these incredible meals and Christmases and holidays for us. 

And once he left, I missed him so much and I longed to keep our family together. 

I longed to keep those traditions, and really, no one else wanted to keep them on that level. 

And I was trying to keep that loved one alive in that way.

There’s some beautiful things about it, but some real challenging things about it. 

So I wanted to serve my family in love and with love, and I had lots of rules set up around how that had to be. 

It had to be harvested by me, it had to be homemade, it had to be fresh, super demanding of myself around what had to be produced there. 

And then when I looked at it even deeper, I saw some ugly things in there. 

Like I wanted to be known in my family for being the best, creating the best.

It was really linked to me needing feedback, me needing to be acknowledged, and that goes deep into worthiness. 

If you’re not stabilized within yourself, you look outside of yourself for people to confirm if you’re valuable. 

So it was going into my feeling of value about myself and significance, because within a big family I felt like one of many, and I wanted to stand out.

I wanted to be a stand out in my life.

So there’s things about it that are loving and incredible, and there are other things about it that are about insecurity. 

So I started to reframe those things, not because I initially learned about these rules, but because actually I got sick over not being able to keep escalating the perfectionism that was around this event, to the point where I had to really look into it. 

Once I did, it shifted my family events, it shifted my health, it shifted the way I include family members and don’t compete with family members. 

It shifted the way I see the giftedness in others, and I allow myself to enjoy the giftedness in myself without having to be gifted at everything.

There was a domino effect of positives around looking at the motivation behind the perfectionistic rules that I created for myself that were so tough on me, and also not enjoyable in some ways for others. 

So when you look at the things in your life, what in your life do you not settle around? 

What in your life are you really particular with yourself about, or others, and you’re critical about, and you’ve created some rigidity in the form of perfectionism?

Take a look at that today. 

Take a look at what’s underneath that. 

I gave you a massive example just now, but what’s underneath a story of perfectionism for you? 

I’d love to support you in liberating that by shifting some rules today. 

Look at the essence of the rules. 

What can you shift? 

Even if it’s a good rule, like mine about creating a beautiful meal for people I love. 

That’s beautiful. 

So whatever is not working within that, what can you just tweak and shift so that you can make your life a more beautiful place for you and the people around you?

For the rest of the week, I’m going to be digging into some other aspects of rules that you have and why they are created so you can do some more auditing and shifting. 

Have a beautiful day.