4 Important Life Lessons That Perfectionists Miss Out On

Yes, I know writers should have an odd number in a catchy headline, but I’m not perfect. Anymore.

I remember when my first boyfriend tried to teach me how to play tennis.

He softly lobbed the ball over the net again and again. Sometimes I feebly connected, sending the ball in an unintended direction. Mostly I missed. I spent a lion’s share of the time retrieving the ball, growing increasingly frustrated and irritated. This was not my idea of fun.

With that attitude, the lesson was no fun for my boyfriend either. He never took me to a tennis court again.

That incident captures my “all or nothing” approach to pretty much everything throughout my childhood, adolescence, and most of my adult life. If I wasn’t great at something, I usually didn’t do it unless I had to.

Yes, I was a dyed-in-the-wool perfectionist.

This even applied to things I liked — even loved — to do.

Take art. An art teacher gave me a “C” in tenth grade; I didn’t take another art class for decades, even though I loved to paint and draw, and had previously experimented with everything from charcoal to ink to acrylics.

Nope. I couldn’t let art drag down my stellar high school average.

For many years, I viewed my perfectionism as a positive trait. A badge of honor. It drove me to strive for excellence academically, win English awards, and get accepted into an Ivy League school. I mean, what could possibly be wrong with striving to be perfect?

Well, I’ll tell you.

Perfectionists miss out on trying new things just for the fun of it.

Had I not expected to be a tennis pro out of the gate, or ever, I may have eventually learned to enjoy the sport, the feeling of the ball as it connected with my racquet, and the health benefits that accompany playing such a physical game.

Who really cared that I would never emulate Serena Williams — or even if I looked awkward on the court? I’m sure my then-boyfriend only wanted to teach me something he enjoyed that we could share as a couple. Poor guy.

And let’s not underestimate the hours of satisfaction and fulfillment I would have gotten had I stuck with art. Maybe another teacher would have given me a higher grade for my efforts or provided me with tips and guidance on how to improve my techniques.

Or maybe, just maybe, I would have gotten pretty good at using one or more mediums over time. Not perfect, mind you, but good enough.

Instead, I gave it up for years. Good enough wasn’t good enough for me.

What perfectionists miss out on is the deep satisfaction that comes from simply the “doing” of something. Or the feeling of accomplishment that comes with getting incrementally better at something. We fail to grasp the concept of doing anything just for fun…unless we quickly excel at it.

We can’t let others see us as anything less than perfect. Which leads to my next point.

Perfectionists miss out on years of inner peace.

A job interview. A new job. A first date. A final grade. These are just a few of the scenarios that we perfectionists experience a ton of stress over.

Not just nervousness. Not anticipation, nor excitement. I’m talking about the not-being-able-to-sleep, sweaty armpits kind of anxiety prior to a challenge or opportunity, and the endless hours of replaying how we could have handled it better afterward.

For example, instead of learning how to relax on a sofa, it took perfectionist Steve Jobs a decade to even buy one in order to avoid buyer’s remorse — even though he could have afforded to buy entire furniture showrooms or factories in his search for the perfect one.

Lance Armstrong, already the most renowned cyclist in the world, took performance-enhancing and career-ending drugs to maintain his status in the sport rather than accept the normal physical after-effects of testicular cancer treatment and aging.

Author Ralph Ellison wrote the very successful and critically acclaimed “Invisible Man.” He then spent the next four decades writing a follow-up novel. He had close to 2,000 pages written, but died before he could produce a second novel that met his expectations.

Excessive procrastination, devastating personal choices, and decades of struggling to complete something are all classic earmarks of unhealthy perfectionist tendencies. I know because, until I underwent talk therapy and discovered the balance and serenity of meditation, I personally had all the symptoms.

Perfectionists miss out on a ton of life lessons.

Take failure, for example.

Rather than see setbacks as teachers of life lessons, we perfectionists see them as blocking us from what we think we really want. Screw the concept of “when one door closes, another one opens;” perfectionists often keep banging on the closed door if we believe it was mistakenly slammed in our faces.

Or we subject ourselves to endless hours of self-flagellation when we feel we have failed.

As a result, we don’t see, much less learn, the lessons concealed in what we perceive to be failures.

We would obviously have been perfect for that job promotion, recognition, or award, right? How could they not see that? Or…how could I possibly have blown that? For perfectionists, there must be either fault or blame involved in failures, rather than opportunities for growth.

I just recently learned of the term “failing forward,” which from what I can tell was coined by John C. Maxwell in his book by the same title. Although I immediately understood that failing forward means turning mistakes and setbacks into valuable lessons, I doubt that this concept would have registered with my younger self.

Which is too bad. Looking back on what I considered my own failures, I can now clearly see how I could have become a better, wiser, and more successful person had I paid attention to what life tried over and over to teach me.

If there’s a next life, this is one life lesson I definitely want to carry there with me. At least I now have a lot to write about in this one.

Perfectionists miss out on the restorative benefits of self-care.

One of the unhealthiest traits of being a perfectionist actually lies in how we treat ourselves.

Over the years, as I watched my friends and siblings get married, have children, buy houses, and move up the corporate ladder, I wondered what was wrong with me.

At the time I lived in an apartment. Kept getting into dead-end relationships. My career was stalled. Calling myself a writer, I sometimes went months or even years without writing anything at all except tormented journal passages.

As a perfectionist, I could neither understand nor forgive myself for what I perceived as aberrations in my life.

Yeah, I sought therapy. Read a ton of self-help books. Drank too much when I went out.

I rarely told my friends or family how I was feeling. After all, as I’ve said before, I couldn’t let others see me as anything less than perfect. Which obviously is the biggest delusion of all…because of course they did, years before I could ever admit it to myself — and before I realized that not being perfect was A-OK. That I was A-OK.

I eventually came to understand that striving for perfection was, in fact, a curse, not a badge of honor. And once I embraced my purely imperfect, messy, and wonderful self, life began to unfold for me like a long-dormant flower.

This meant admitting to my mistakes without fear, learning to accept my imperfections with love and humor, and embracing that my life has played out in exactly the right way. Most of the time, at least. Unlearning decades of unhealthy perfectionist behavior has taken a lot of time and vigilance. I fall back into it on occasion.

But, after all, I’m not perfect.

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