Hi my lovely audacious babes,
in today’s THE AUDACIOUS BABE PODCAST episode I’m chatting about perfectionism, or to be more specific the illusion of perfectionism and why we are continuing to torture ourselves with it.
This is a more serious topic which is rather dear to me as I’ve been struggling with this all my life and only in the recent few years have started to work on it and realising a lot of things that this habit has done to me and my health.
I am talking about the continuous strive for perfection. We all do it. Constantly. Some more than others but we all do it. And I’m just increasingly asking myself, why?? WHY?? Why are we doing this to ourselves?
Ok but before we dive deeper into the topic, first things first, what is Perfectionism anyway? So, I’ve googled the definition of perfectionism… and this is what Wikipedia came up with:
Perfectionism – a person’s striving for flawlessness and setting high performance standards, accompanied by critical self-evaluations and concerns regarding others’ evaluations. […] perfectionism drives people to attempt to achieve an unattainable ideal, while their adaptive perfectionism can sometimes motivate them to reach their goals. In the end, they derive pleasure from doing so. When perfectionists do not reach their goals, they often fall into depression.
So again, why are we doing this to ourselves? It says it right there in the definition – unattainable ideal. Why would we want to strive for something that is an unattainable ideal. The “perfect” thing/goal/whatever – Perfection simply does not exist. It is indeed an illusion. Yet we all strive for it.
Listen to the whole episode about the illusion of perfectionism, what serious effects this can have on your health and how we need to make e conscious effort to identify these behavioural patterns within ourselves.
Do you guys sometimes feel this pressure of perfectionism? Are you falling into the trap of the illusion? Let me know how you are doing over in our community. We can all share and learn from each other, or simply just be there for one another. Sometimes a simple “virtual” shoulder to moan and cry on, will help to get you out of this vicious circle and the strive to a perfect self.
If you are not part of our community yet, just head over here and join us!. Would love to hear from you!
With love,
Magdalena x
Resources:
The Guardian Article: “Perfectionism is destroying the mental health of my millennial generation” by Daisy Buchanan