#081 Perfectionism Ruining my Relationship

Are you a perfectionist? 

Do others see you as being really intense because of the way you show up in your day-to-day life, and how it’s impacting your relationships and quality of life?

In this article, I’m going to show you how to begin the process of internal change and where to begin.

The internal changes help you to create the changes on the external in your relationships, in the way you feel, in the way you show up. 

It’s going to help you to change your whole life.

Perfectionism is definitely one of the things that play into most of our relationships, especially those of us who are ambitious and like to create results in our lives, and when pursuing that; you get stuck.

LIVING YOUR BEST LIFE OR TRYING TO 

I’m going deep with this subject because it’s a personal experience, and it’s about overcoming it and how I did it.

But along with that, most of my clients in a lot of the relationship work that I do, at least 50% of them are contributing to the challenges of their relationships, and don’t realise it.

We’re just trying to live the best life and in trying to live our best life, we get so caught up. So I’m reminding you that you’re human. 

Being human means that you don’t need to be perfect.You can embrace imperfection. 

The problem that we have is that we try and live up to these ideals, and we try and show up in life by being the best that we can be.

But we often get caught up and lost in the best that we can, as being perfect. 

The more you look at something, the more detailed it becomes, and the more perfect it needs to be because you see all the imperfections. 

It’s like looking at yourself in the mirror as a teenager.

PIMPLES AND PERFECTIONISM

I recall not too long ago, in my teenage years, looking in the mirror as a teenager with a blitz of acne. The more you look at it, even though you’ve only got one or two or maybe you were a little plastered like I was.

You take those one and two, and you grow them by focusing on them so much. And you look awful in your mind.

So you’re forever trying to overcome that. You’re forever trying to better that and trying to better something which is natural. 

When I say natural, not the perception that you have of yourself, but what’s natural is who you really are.

We’re human beings. We’ve been created the way that Allah (swt) created us. And Allah (swt) created us in the perfect form.

So just showing up in life without all the baggage of perception that we have of ourselves, makes life so much more joyful and fun.

You can love your experience of life if you can get into that place. 

Ultimately, that’s where I want you to go. I want you to get into that place where you’re having fun being you.

We get caught up trying to be this perfect version of ourselves and we don’t have any fun. 

So it’s really important to remember that you’re human, and not criticise yourself, or everyone around you.

Our problem is we get into that self-criticism, we put that magnifying glass onto that one zit or one spot in your face, making it look humongous, like a mountain on your face. 

But it’s really just one zit or one spot. 

I know it’s an awful analogy. I’m sure it doesn’t make you feel good.

But that’s how we look at ourselves and our lives. 

And if you can get out of that, if you can take away the magnifying glass, then you’re going to contextualise everything in its correct place. 

We are perfectly imperfect. Allah (swt) created us in the best form. 

How does this relate to your relationships? 

The way that we show up in our lives day to day, the way that we feel about our lives, day to day, actually impacts our relationships.

We don’t always draw a correlation. We don’t draw the link between it but it’s true.

It happens to all of us and we don’t even realise it.

We feel something, we overreact, we misbehave, we incessantly think about something and then we want to make it right. 

In trying to make it right, we scrutinise everything and we make it so difficult for ourselves. 

By making it difficult for yourself, you think that you’re taking on the burden and the difficulty is on you. 

But you actually push yourself to burn out. You push yourself to overwork.

Most of the time it’s because we hold these thoughts that we call values, and then we’re imposing them on ourselves.

Ask yourself as you read this, are you doing this? 

If you are, then tell yourself, Yes, I am doing this, because most of us don’t even accept it.

We don’t acknowledge it and as a result, we just continue with it. 

The reason we do that is that we feel the behaviour is justified.

We justify it to ourselves and we repeat the same things to ourselves over and over again.

And all it does is make you feel worse. But in the process of that, you’re not being merciful.

In fact, what you’re doing is the total opposite. You’re being hard on yourself and the harder you are on yourself, the more difficult it is. 

WHY IS MERCY IMPORTANT?

Why is it so important to be merciful? 

Allah (swt) sent the Prophet (saw) to humanity; to everyone, as a source of mercy. 

That means to feel human we need to experience mercy, to feel the ease of being human, you need to experience mercy. 

When we’re forever hard on ourselves, making life difficult for ourselves under the guise of being perfect, it makes life super difficult for us. 

The more difficult it is, the more you’ll continue to justify what you’re doing. 

But you’re digging yourself an awful trench of a hole to get stuck in. 

It’s the emotional stuckness that we feel when we get in that, and then we don’t know why it’s happening. 

Next thing you know, we’re really upset with ourselves and with the people around us. 

We don’t even realise why we’re doing it.

What’s actually happening is that we’re exploding in emotions and the behaviours that come from them. And it’s impacting everyone around us. 

If that’s you, you really need to take in some of that mercy, being merciful to yourself.

If you can’t be merciful to yourself, if you can’t be forgiving, if you can’t give yourself a break, then that’s going to break you.

Not being willing to give yourself a break will actually break you.

You’re thinking that you’re being productive, you’re thinking you’re on your way to success, but on your way to success, you run out of energy.

You don’t want to get out of bed, you get scared about what you have to deal with. Throughout the day, you have a lot of fear and anxiety about how you’re going to face the day.

I coach so many entrepreneurs, professionals, and people who are hard-working in their professional careers, in their parenting, and in their life. 

And they drive themselves so hard because they feel as though it’s good to be merciful to the kids, it’s good to be merciful to your colleagues and to your team.

But you don’t give yourself that same leniency. That means you won’t feel the relief and the ease. 

Instead, you’ll feel driven and under pressure. 

We know when you feel under pressure, you start to boil up, you start to overflow, and then you start to explode. 

Most of us don’t want to explode on people around us.

So what we do instead is implode but whether you explode or implode, your relationships will be impacted.

Your kids, your colleagues, your husband, your wife, your parents, whoever it is that you’re in direct contact with will be impacted.

They’ll either be impacted by your withdrawal, not connecting with them, or they’re going to be impacted by the way that you show up.

Okay, now don’t get into judgement and start doing your own head in.

Because you can change it. 

SIMPLE, USEFUL TOOLS

The more you use and apply these tools, the more you are impacted by it.

It will help you immensely in your life. 

Start by showing yourself some mercy, leniency, and compassion for being human. Give yourself a break by reminding yourself that you’re human.

That compassion will help you to extend it to others in your interaction with them.

It will come out in a nice way in your life and in your relationships.

You’ll impact the people around you, just like when you’re tense and under pressure and it impacts the people around you. 

When you’re under the relief of compassion and mercy, that will impact the people around you.

People who are truly ambitious in their lives want to raise their families,their jobs and their businesses in a certain way.

They have some high goals and they can do them. 

But they throw in the lack of compassion. And it slows you down.

It slows you down in your business, in the way that you parent your kids, and in every type of relationship. 

The best way to change it is to instil compassion and mercy. 

Number two: When those justifications come up, challenge your justifications. 

They’re just opinions. You pick them up somewhere or someone told you, it’s the best way to be. 

But if it’s not helping you grow in your relationships, in your life.

It’s actually having the opposite effect. So there’s no point holding onto those opinions. 

If they don’t help you, then you put them aside. 

It doesn’t mean you’ve got to put them aside and throw them aside for the rest of your life. 

But you have to be flexible. The more flexible you are with yourself in the way that you impose upon yourself, the less of a perfectionist you’re going to be.

The more imposing you are upon yourself, the more of a perfectionist you’re going to be.

You’re going to drive yourself into this burnout experience.

You’re going to drive yourself into this explosion of behaviours and emotions that actually impact your relationships in a super negative way.

That’s going to help you beyond anything else that you’ll do.

Take these two things and slowly, incrementally put them into your life. 

It’s really helpful and powerful.