The Perfection Obsession
Performance VS Perfection. Who is the winner?
If you have this habit of spending half an hour on a piece of text that someone else may have hit the submit button on within ten minutes. Or, you never finish anything, reason? You always keep thinking about projects you have submitted, articles you have written, or the report that you just shared with your manager? How could you have made it ‘just perfect’? And, you at times think of getting things done faster? It takes you forever to finish a job at hand? Well, you are part of the perfection industry then!
And, the rest of us are a part of the world where we get rewards for missing or breaking a rule or thing here and there! Our job is the reason that we have time to focus on the lyrics of the new song or read blogs at work. Even attending conferences and events and being part of the meetings is a part of our job as our organization believes we will come up with an extraordinary idea or, we will find a way to network and submit a lead on the prospective client.
So if our job is to write that report or find that lead in the conference, why are we so focused on ‘perfection’?
‘Aiming for flawlessness seems so important, setting high achievement standards, critically self-analyzing yourself and everyone around and feeling like a failure if you fail to deliver how your brain thought of!’ — these are the traits of someone who is always juggling with ‘I can do better’ disease.
Why do we strive for perfection?
But my dear friend, people have said it ’n’ number of times and I will say it again not just to you but as a reminder to myself — perfection is not possible. It is a fantasy that does more harm than good. It creates a sort of black and white. We learn to play between the binary of actions — good or bad, failure or perfection; a prejudiced view which is bound to disappoint. Life is beauty that lies between the two extremes. The roots of perfection are tucked deep within the lessons our mind receives in the competitive culture we all are a part of.
This stems from the special love we use to receive from our parents on achieving academic accolades. Being best in the class was celebrated, and anything below that made us feel uncomfortable for days. This tethered feeling stays with us, always. We start judging ourselves if things don’t turn out how we originally planned them to be. We unconsciously begin to think about how perfection will secure attention, love, and affection. The result of which is a stage of failure rather than an act of embracing who we are and why we are!
None of us is in the perfect business, so why pretend? It’s not what the world wants from us! The circle of life is — being friends with your imperfection and working on the flaws constantly, picking up after a fall, and becoming less imperfect than before. How can we forget that even our human body is full of imperfections? According to Nautilus’ punch list for the human body says from our knees to our eyeballs, our bodies are full of hack solutions — an unsound spine, an inflexible knee, a too-narrow pelvis, exposed testicles, backward retina, and a kluge brain. and the list goes on!
Perfection is not a milestone!
When someone asked the industry professionals and independent artists about the existence of perfection in design and art; they said ‘Striving for absolute perfection can prevent you from completing projects. Not completing projects means that you don’t get paid. Not getting paid means that you’re not a professional designer.’ — Peter Connolly, IT Manager
‘Art is always a work in progress, that is, you can always take it further.’
Perfection is about transformation by doing things every single day. It is a moving target, meaning when you strive to be excellent, you start getting better because you put that effort every single day without worrying too much at every step. When you make mistakes in life, it doesn’t mean that you are not perfect, it means that you are a step ahead from where you were the last time. Making mistakes is far better than faking perfection! We need to accept that we are all humans and we are imperfect. And, that is what is cool about us, unique about us. It is what makes us all awesome!
