By Jim Hagarty
2016
Perfectionism is the enemy of creativity. It can induce inactivity and bring a person almost to a complete halt. We are afraid to do anything because it won’t be perfect.
The cause of perfectionism is fear and it has its roots in early childhood. We fear a loss of approval from others, in effect, a withdrawal of love. The fear of being unloved and of being abandoned is every human’s primal fear from the time we are separated from our mothers and brought into the world. We strive all our lives to prevent rejection and abandonment. We can be 95 years old and still crave acceptance.
But why do we push ourselves to not just do well but to be perfect, to accomplish our tasks perfectly? It’s hard to say for sure, but part of the answer lies in our upbringing. Sure, you agree, someone raised in a hostile atmosphere would naturally be afraid of rejection. But most of us are not nurtured in that kind of atmosphere. In fact, today’s parents strive to be loving and supportive at every stage of their children’s lives.
But here is the message those good parents may be sending, unintentionally: We love you more when you achieve great things. That is why we make such a fuss. Parents lavish praise on their kids for their accomplishments, a seemingly natural thing to do, but the message kids often take from that is that failure to achieve significantly will result in loss of love, even if they’ve rarely seen this acted out by anyone. Their logic tells them this is so. Do well and everyone cheers. Do poorly and while there may be no boos, there will probably be a lot of silence.
The kids feel they have to keep the hits coming.
Their parents, other family members and society at large including the kids’ teachers, didn’t really want to send that message. They only wanted the young ones to feel good about themselves but in some ways, they may have only heightened the pressure on them and contributed to their fear and self-rejection.
Somehow, the message needs to be sent that there is no achievement that could increase a parent’s love for her child nor is there a failure that could decrease it. Perhaps the only solution for someone who is a perfectionist, is for that person to practise a few times at doing some things less than perfectly. Strive, purposely, for imperfection once in a while. They might be surprised to find that the world did not stop turning because their effort was judged to be sub par on any particular project.
And they will no doubt discover that in the face of their failure, they were loved as much as they ever were.
Maybe it is time we began to challenge our children’s fear of failure by allowing them the freedom to fail now and then.
Of course, we want perfection in our complicated world. Our engineers and architects need to know what they are doing so the bridges we drive over don’t fall down. Our doctors need to be perfectionists when they are in the operating room. Perfection is an admirable goal if the intent is to complete a task well for its own sake and not to prevent alienation from our loved ones and the world.
There is needless and endless pressure on young people today to achieve and to find their paths. They need to pause and look up from their anxiety for a moment. We need to encourage them to do that.
“There’s a time to be still and let the river carry you where it will.” From the song, Let There Be Love.
