Day Five: Perfectionism is a Gold-Coated Turd

Did you want to see me broken?

Bowed head and lowered eyes?

Shoulders falling down like teardrops,

Weakened by my soulful cries?

Does my haughtiness offend you?

Don’t you take it awful hard

’Cause I laugh like I’ve got gold mines

Diggin’ in my own backyard.

You may shoot me with your words,

You may cut me with your eyes,

You may kill me with your hatefulness,

But still, like air, I’ll rise.

-Maya Angelou, Still I Rise

I want to dive deeper into the thought of how we hold ourselves back. Perfectionism in particular, has been the bane of my existence. And I know I’m not alone in that.

Those of us who struggle with perfectionism once saw it as something to be celebrated. Sometimes we wear it like a badge of honor, as if it is responsible for our accomplishments and superior work ethic. But that couldn’t be farther from the truth. 

Perfectionism is a soul sucking, creativity killing, joy smashing piece of shit. 

It causes you to constantly compare yourself to an ideal you can never meet. Nothing is bloody perfect, and yet those of us that struggle with perfectionism will exhaust ourselves with needing the product of our efforts to be “just right.” 

We wait until the timing is just right, enough people agree with our ideas, or the stars are in precise alignment. But what good does that do us? Not a damn thing. 

Perfectionism is an excuse to let our fear sit in the driver seat of our life. It prevents us from taking chances and being brave enough to really live. We think it will save us from being embarrassed, judged, or criticized.

But it doesn’t. Those things will happen no matter how hard we work, how closely we pay attention to details, or how precise our craft is. 

Judgment from others really doesn’t have anything to do with us. It has much more to do with the person doing the judging. When we claim responsibility for how other people feel about us, we keep ourselves small and afraid. 

Ok, so how do we go about breaking free of perfectionism? You’re not going to like it, and I know I don’t. You get ready to fail.

To combat perfectionism, you stop when something is “good enough.” You turn in your half-assed attempt. You try something even though you know you are going to suck at it.

You fail, again and again, until you realize that failing isn’t as scary as it’s cracked up to be. The world doesn’t end. People may make fun of you for a while, but then they move on to more exciting (or mundane) things in their lives.

Overcoming perfectionism is realizing that people don’t pay as much attention to what you’re doing as you think they do. They are too busy with their own insecurities and busy lives. 

This is why I’m writing and posting these journal entries publicly. To push myself to confront my perfectionism head on. Nobody is really going to care that much about what I have to say.

Some people might be marginally offended by my swearing, or majorly offended by a stance I take. But so what? I have a right to show up imperfectly and take up space, just as much as anyone else on this planet.

Hi, I’m Dr. Jessica Simpkins and I quit residency with $200K in student loans. I’m unemployed, have little money in my bank account, live with my parents, benefit from Medicaid, and struggle with PTSD. 

These facts don’t even begin to capture all of who I am. They are only part of my journey.

Go ahead and judge me. Be my guest. There’s nothing you could say to me that I haven’t already said to myself. 

I’m not hiding behind the mask of perfectionism anymore. You’d better bet I’m going to keep falling on my ass as I move forward, but I will keep getting up. I will keep learning from each and every failure. 

And every time I am reminded that I am enough without needing to do or be something more than who I am, I will only get stronger. Resilience is the antidote to perfectionism.