Why You Shouldn’t Aim for Perfection

We want things in life to be perfect. We want things to go as planned, and everything to be just how we want it to be.

But we all know that life isn’t like that. It isn’t perfect.

But we still get this idea in our head that things should be perfect.

It becomes this aim in life to strive for perfection. It’s an end goal to have life exactly the way you want it.

Stop trying to be perfect.

So what’s wrong with aiming for perfection?

It should be a good thing, right?

I don’t think there’s anything particularly wrong with wanting things to be perfect, it’s more of the unrealistic expectations you begin to place on yourself. And you begin to feel like everything you do and everything you are is just not good enough. It increases negativity in your life when you should be focusing on more positivity.

Then you see other people with their apparently perfect lives, and constantly wonder what you’re doing wrong, and wonder why your life can be more like theirs. You don’t see the struggles of what it has taken for them to get where they are, or the battles they are going through. You only see what they want you to see. But all you see, is that their life is perfect.

Don’t aim for perfection. It will make you miserable. And you could end up with perfection anxiety.

It’s like it has become ingrained in us that we have to have the perfect life, the perfect look, the perfect everything, and that if everything isn’t perfect we’ve failed somehow.

We often place a lot of pressure on ourselves.

We think everyone is judging us and everything we do, so we place even more pressure on ourselves. We become so scared that what we are doing isn’t the best it could be, so we continue to put things off for a long time. Because what we are doing never seems good enough.

Because if things aren’t perfect, then what’s the point?

You shouldn’t worry about how to be perfect.

And if we keep aiming for perfection, we will never be happy. We will never look at ourselves and feel good enough.

That is what’s wrong with aiming for perfection.

When perfect isn’t good enough

There may even come a time when perfect just isn’t good enough. You get close, then you move the goal posts even further away.

Then our thoughts turn to self doubt, and we lose trust in ourselves.

Trying to consistently hold yourself to unrealistic high standards can have negative impacts on your health and well-being.

Life is a journey and you learn things along the way. We shouldn’t be making things more difficult for ourselves.

It’s pressure you don’t need and it’s going to end up making you miserable. Because you’ll fail to live up to your own high expectations of the way you think things should be.

If you spend too much time aiming for perfection, you willl never be happy. Because perfection is unattainable. You will spend the rest of your life feeling like you’re not good enough and you won’t measure up to the expectations you have placed on yourself.

Take the moments, enjoy life for what it is.

Let go of the idea of perfection.

It will make you happier and you will accomplish more because you aren’t going over the same thing over and over trying to make it as perfect as you can possibly get it.

It’s good to do and to be the best you can, but realise your limits and don’t let it consume and eat away at you because it isn’t your idea of perfect.

Be the best you, you can be. We often tell our kids to just do the best they can, but we often fail to take our own advice.

Signs You Might be a Perfectionist

You struggle to get things done on time

It may take longer to do tasks because they just aren’t done good enough. It can be hard to get things done, and you may miss deadlines.

You expect perfection from others

You might become critical of others because they don’t come up to the standards you’ve set for yourself and feel like they could do better. You cast a critical eye and spot tiny imperfections and can’t see past them.

You have low self-esteem and anxiety

Being critical and unhappy with your life will make everything seem inadequate and can cause low self-esteem and anxiety, or even depression.

You are a people pleaser

You want everyone to be happy with your work or your accomplishments, but you become stressed or anxious if someone doesn’t like it.

You find it hard to emotionally connect with people

You have a need to be accepted and fear being rejected by people that you find it easier to keep to yourself rather than risk rejection.

You don’t like to ask for help

You feel like you should be able to do everything yourself and asking for help makes you feel like a failure.

You avoid doing things because you might fail

If you think you might not do something well, you probably wouldn’t even bother trying, because what’s the point? Or you give up, because it’s easier than failing. 

You become good at hiding your flaws

You fear people judging you so you do whatever it takes to hide your ‘flaws’ from everyone. You can become really good at pretending everything in life is perfect, even when things are falling apart.

You can’t celebrate successes

Even if you have reached your goal, you might feel there was something wrong with it or something you should have done better, or faster. It feels like you don’t deserve to celebrate your success.

You aren’t happy with your life

It constantly feels like something is wrong, or that life could be better. Even when things are going well, it just doesn’t feel good enough.

So how can you let go of the idea of perfection?

Realise everything is a learning opportunity

If things don’t go the way you wanted them to, what could you try differently? Don’t look at it as if you have failed. Look at it as the opportunity to try something different and learn something new.

Focus on your journey

It’s easy to focus on the things we want to get out of life, that we often forget about the journey that we need to take to get there. Because we feel that that is where ‘perfect’ is. That is when we’ll be happy and will have everything we’ve ever wanted in life. Enjoy the path you take to get there, but don’t expect it to be exactly how you’ve imagined it to be.

Keep your priorities in check

What are the most important things you need to do? If you are struggling to let go of things being perfect, try choosing just one thing to focus on. There are going to be times in life when you want them to be as perfect as they can be. If you find it hard to tone down on aiming for perfection, think about what areas in life perfection is the most important.

Don’t aim for perfection quotes

If you look for perfection, you’ll never be content. – Leo Tolstoy

Perfection is not attainable, but if we chase perfection we can catch excellence. – Vince Lombardi

When you stop expecting people to be perfect, you can like them for who they are. – Donald Miller

Have no fear of perfection. – you’ll never reach it. – Salvador Dali

Everyone is comparing lives on social media and wants the perfect body, perfect image, perfect outfit, perfect life – we’re striving for this perfection, and it’s so unhealthy because there’s no such thing as perfection. – Emily Atack

Strive for continuous improvement, instead of perfection. – Kim Collins

To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often. – Winston Churchill

There are two kinds of perfect. The one you can never achieve, and the other, by just being yourself. – Lauren King

When you’re passionate about something, you want it to be all it can be. But in the endgame of life, I fundamentally believe the key to happiness is letting go of that idea of perfection. – Debra Messing

Everything, if you could only see it clearly enough, like this, is beautiful and complete. Everything has it’s own perfection. – Joan Lindsay

Perfection does not exist – you can always do better and you can always grow. – Les Brown

Just remember, perfection is the enemy of productivity.

If you always aim for perfection, you will never make any progress. You will spend so much time focusing on one things when you could be doing so many others. More often than not, getting something done is much better than trying to do one thing “perfectly”.

Dont’ aim for perfection. Aim for the best it can be. Aim for good enough.

Life is hard enough at times without adding extra stresses to ourselves.

Being perfect will not make you happy, and it can stop you from trying new things and from living the life you should.

Be proud of what you have accomplished, regardless of any “flaws”.

Enjoy the imperfections in life. They are often more interesting, anyway.

In a lot of ways imperfection is perfection.

Are you a perfectionist? Do you place too much pressure on yourself for things to be perfect?