Chattanooga Pulse

“She’s perfect!”

“I have to ace this test!”

“It’s not perfect…let’s do it over.”

“I have 10 people coming for dinner…this meal has to be perfect!”

“We had a good time, but not a great time.  Maybe we’ll do better next year.”

Do you ever find yourself saying or thinking things like the above?  As you read those words, do you hear the underlying stress just beneath the surface?  That’s what the goal of perfection does:  It carries with it a stress that shifts the focus from enjoying the experience to the pressure of performing flawlessly.  It takes a perfectly good activity and taints it with the anxiety that comes from always trying to get the “A,” or score the 100, or be the best.

I had a wonderful music professor years ago who never felt he was teaching the class about music.  He believed he was teaching us about life—through the art of music.  And in his wisdom, he would teach us that it’s acceptable to not get an “A” all the time.

If we do just OK, if we do so-so, it’s not the end of the world.  He’d rather we listen to music well than test well.  He’d rather we become enraptured with the beauty of a Tchaikovsky concerto or the emotional storm of a Beethoven symphony than worry about a test score.

This was hard for some of us to wrap our minds around, given that we were conditioned to achieve that “A.”  We were taught to value the product rather than the process, and in doing so, we missed being present, living in the moment; we missed the value of the here and now while in anxious pursuit of the almighty end result.

Let me tell you a story about my first day in first grade, and my first-grade teacher, Miss Tompkins.  On one hand, Miss Tompkins was a devoted teacher who’d been teaching so long she actually taught my grandfather when the school was just a one-room schoolhouse!  But she was also quite fierce and about 2,000 years old.  It’s possible she taught Jesus himself.  Being 2,000 years old, her teaching style was also 2,000 years old, and she believed that if you “spare the rod, you spoil the child.”

On the first day of school, she handed each student a blank piece of paper.  The assignment was to draw a face.  I drew a face.  A great big, fill-up-the-whole-page, color-outside-the-lines, Mr.-Potato-Head, balloon-shaped face.  I loved it!  I added all the details as instructed, and when Miss Tompkins came around to collect our little works of art, I proudly held mine up to her.

“What’s this?!” she barked.

“It’s a face,” I answered, starting to suspect something was terribly wrong.

“Stand up!” she told me.  I stood up.  And do you know, that little ancient woman spanked my bottom!  She told me that was no way to draw a face, taking up the whole paper like I did.  Where would there be room for a body?  A face isn’t that big!

Holy Grail, I wasn’t getting an “A” that day.  I learned a valuable lesson, although not one I’d ever want to teach a child:  Do what will please authority, and do it perfectly.

Now do not misunderstand me.  Of course there are times when there isn’t room for mistakes.  Brain surgery comes to mind.  Or piloting a commercial jet.  But you know, life isn’t perfect.  People aren’t perfect.  Even the beauty of Mother Nature—from a leaf to the face of a kitten—isn’t “perfect” in its asymmetry.
See, here’s the problem with striving to be perfect:  You can’t.

Here’s the beauty of imperfection:  The understanding that doing something, even badly, is better than not doing it at all.  My friend, Christine Kane, refers to this as “Glorious Imperfection” and says that allowing yourself to do something imperfectly is a way of setting intention.  “It lets your ego know that you would rather do the activity than wait until you can do it flawlessly,” she says.

And often with that waiting comes paralysis.  How many projects do you not even begin for fear of it not coming out perfectly?  How many times have you felt paralyzed because of anxiety and fear of an imperfect performance, or project, or job?  Sure, we all like to hear, “Job well done!”  But remember this: When you demand perfection from the start, then your attention isn’t on the activity itself.  Your attention is drained in the perpetual “How am I doing?” analysis.

My suggestion is to take an imperfect vacation (you forgot to pack the kids’ swim trunks … oh, well!)  Throw an imperfect dinner party, do some imperfect yoga, write an imperfect email, go on an imperfect bike ride.  So what?  It’s not the end of the world.  Maybe if you value having a good time, here and now, instead of doing it perfectly, you’ll find a new level of enjoyment in what you’re doing.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a great big out-of-the-margins balloon-head to draw.

Until next time:  “Life isn’t about finding yourself, it’s about creating yourself.”
— George Bernard Shaw

Dr. Rick Pimental-Habib, Ph.D., is a psychotherapist, minister, and educator, in private practice in Chattanooga, and is the author of “Empowering the Tribe” and “The Power of a Partner.”  Visit his web site at www.DrRPH.com where you can email your questions and comments.