Kim has a clean house. OK, not just clean. Immaculate. When she gets up in the morning, she immediately makes the bed. She makes breakfast but wouldn’t think of going to work before washing the dishes and putting everything away. She vacuums every other day, and more often if people might be dropping by. The car is always washed and the plants are trimmed. Kim doesn’t have a lot of free time and often feels overwhelmed by how much there is to do. If a burglar broke in during the day, he would think he was in a model home.
Is it bad to have a clean house? That depends on the motive. Kim might really enjoy cleaning and the satisfaction that comes from living in an organized environment. But if she does it to build an image of perfection, it’s unhealthy. She never gets to enjoy the results because she’s so concerned about getting it just right.
Kim’s perfectionism carries over to work as well. She often turns in projects at the last minute because she keeps revising them. She wouldn’t think of submitting an assignment that’s less than perfect, because someone might not think well of her. She sets unusually high standards for her own performance and her career path, believing that it’s a demonstration of personal excellence. Her co-workers respect her drive and initiative, but she wonders why none of them have become close friends with her.
There’s a fine line between excellence and perfection. While we can attain excellence, we’ll never achieve perfection—and we’ll wear ourselves out trying.
Why Do We Strive for Perfection?
Perfectionism might seem like a strange topic to include when we’re talking about crazy people. But when we’re involved with those people, it’s one of the most common defenses used for survival.
Here’s how it works:
We don’t want people to think badly of us. It pulls us away from our set point, and everything inside us wants to get back to our comfort zone. We think, “If there’s nothing to criticize about me, these crazy people will appreciate me.” The closer we are to perfect, the less they’ll have to critique.
Sounds logical, right? It seems like that should produce less stress because we aren’t being evaluated or harassed. But for those who have experienced it, the stress level actually rises. No one can achieve perfection, and it can be exhausting trying to maintain that image over a long period of time. It takes an incredible amount of energy to micromanage every detail of our lives.
When we base our personal value on the opinions of other people, we crave their approval. We think that if people see imperfections in us, they won’t like us. So being perfect becomes a way of avoiding that disapproval.
In Why Am I Afraid to Tell You Who I Am? John Powell makes this revealing statement: “I’m afraid to tell you who I am, because if I tell you who I am, you might not like who I am . . . and that’s all I’ve got.”[18] When we feel the need to appear perfect, we set ourselves up to be at the mercy of others’ opinions. Our self-worth is based on what other people think of us, so we try to control their perceptions.
I did that when I was in high school and college. I didn’t feel great about myself, so I tried to find ways to make people look up to me through the things I chose to do. My first job was working in the morgue at the county hospital in Phoenix (an incredibly cool job when you’re a teenage boy). From there I worked in a music store, learned offset printing and worked in a print shop, got a job doing the afternoon on-air shift at a local radio station, and learned wedding photography with a studio in town. In other words, I picked the jobs that no one else was doing, hoping that others would be impressed with the unusual things I did.
It worked. They were impressed, and I received a lot of attention for what I was doing. But it didn’t help my self-worth. I assumed that they were impressed with my actions, not with who I really was on the inside. I figured that if they really knew what I was like, they wouldn’t be impressed at all. So I worked hard to maintain the image but felt worse and worse about myself when I was alone.
It took years to find my value in myself instead of in living for the attention and approval of others.
Parents often want the approval of others, so they make sure their kids are always on their best behavior in public. They don’t want bad behavior reflecting on their parenting skills. Unfortunately, it’s unhealthy for the kids and projects a false image of perfection.
Perfectionists usually grow up being valued for performance rather than character. They never experience unconditional love, so they equate acceptance with performance. They learn to believe that other people only see worth in them because of what they accomplish and how they do it. As adults, they view themselves in the same way, with their self-worth being a product of other people’s opinions. They don’t want to be criticized, so they try to become perfect.
The Dark Side of Perfectionism
It’s natural to assume that perfectionism would be a pathway to success in life. After all, the better we perform, the more successful we’ll be. Makes sense, right?
But it actually gets in the way of success. Since we never achieve perfection, we never feel satisfied about our performance. So we always feel dissatisfied and unhappy about the way we live and work. Pretty soon, we can’t relax and enjoy life the way it is.
At the same time, we notice others enjoying life while allowing their flaws to show. We see them being OK with less than perfect results, and we either compare ourselves (“I’m better than he is”) or criticize ourselves (“What’s wrong with me? Why can’t I be like that?”).
It starts a vicious cycle. We don’t want to be rejected, so we get defensive when other people criticize us. We try to protect our image of perfection. But that defensiveness drives people away from us. When that happens, we become critical of others, evaluating them against our own standards of perfection for ourselves. A sense of pride develops, and we hide our flaws even more, which makes us more unapproachable—and the cycle continues.
Author Anne Lamott wrote, “I think perfectionism is based on the obsessive belief that if you run carefully enough, hitting each stepping-stone just right, you won’t have to die. The truth is that you will die anyway and that a lot of people who aren’t even looking at their feet are going to do a whole lot better than you, and have a lot more fun while they’re doing it.”[19]
Perfectionism robs us of life’s richness. If we’re not willing to be human, we’re more likely to become victims of the crazy people in our lives. We become less than ourselves because we’re afraid someone will notice the flaws in our character and criticize us.
Confucius said, “Better a diamond with a flaw than a pebble without.”[20]
Risking Recovery
If we’ve spent our whole life living for the approval of others, it’s hard to break that pattern. That means we’re living lives without authenticity. Strangely enough, we especially look for approval from the crazy people around us. They’re the last people we would want controlling our lives, but we’ve given away the power of our own choices and emotions to them.
So, where do we go with all this? Here are some steps to consider:
My longtime friend Matt called me one day with a problem. He’s an executive with a major corporation, and at the time he was working on his master’s degree at a university about fifty miles from his home. He’s also the parent of four children and had commitments at his church.
“I don’t know what to do,” he said. “I get up and drive to work in traffic for about an hour, and then drive in traffic to school in the evening. Then I drive home late at night, and I’m falling asleep on the freeway because I’m so tired. I barely get to see my wife and kids, plus I have to study to keep up my A average in my classes and give 100 percent at work. I’m managing to do it all, but I’m exhausted. I don’t know what to do, because they’re all important.”
“So, why are you going for straight A’s?” I asked.
“Well, it’s important to do everything with excellence. It wouldn’t be right to do less than my best in anything.”
I responded, “But it sounds like your family is the part of your life that’s missing out the most. You’re getting A’s in school, but you’re getting a B or a C in family. What if you reversed those and went for straight B’s in school and an A in family?”
“I don’t know if I could do that,” he said.
“I’ve had my doctorate for twenty years,” I continued. “In those twenty years, I’ve been asked many times where I studied and what field the degree was in, but no one has ever asked me what grades I got in any classes. I probably had a high B average, but I got the exact same degree as classmates who got straight A’s. The goal was the degree and the gaining of knowledge. I was able to accomplish that goal without the pressure of striving for perfection.”
Matt tried it, and it worked. By taking the pressure off himself to be perfect in school, he was able to devote more time to his family. His relationships at home improved as well as his performance at work. He went for a B average at school—and actually ended up closer to an A average anyway.
He let it go.
Relaxing for Results
Whenever we try to appear perfect to crazy people, we’re ensuring that our relationship will never be healthy. It’s not based on truth; it’s based on a contrived image we’ve developed. Without truth, the relationship will always be stalled. We’re going for an A in image, but getting a C in connection.
What if we went for an A in being ourselves? What if we focused our energy on becoming genuine?
Actor Jim Carrey starred in a movie called Liar, Liar in which he lost the ability to tell a lie. No matter what he was asked, he had to tell the truth. When I saw that movie, I thought of how painful it would be if I couldn’t conceal my true feelings when I wanted to.
But then I thought, Why? Being genuine doesn’t mean just blurting out every negative thought we have about another person. What if we could be caring enough to “speak the truth in love” (see Eph. 4:15)? We wouldn’t have to avoid conflict and confrontation out of fear; rather, we could be ourselves with integrity. It’s really the only basis for healing a hurting relationship.
Maybe it’s time to let go.