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“There is nothing more rare, nor more beautiful, than a woman being unapologetically herself; comfortable in her perfect imperfection. To me, that is the true essence of beauty.”

— Steve Maraboli, Unapologetically You: Reflections on Life and the Human Experience

How to Let Go of Perfectionism

As some of you know, I used to be a raging perfectionist. Yes, I use the word raging because I didn’t just like being perfect, I had to be perfect. My need for perfection was next-level and it grew into something unhealthy in my younger years.

Some of my earliest memories involved my need for perfection. I can trace it back to a very young age - I was 4 years old.

I can remember being in Pre-K with my teacher Mrs. McVeary. Every day we came into class, we were encouraged to complete all of the four activity stations for the week between Monday and Thursday. For every activity completed, we’d get a star stamped on a certificate. At the end of the week on Fridays, our certificate would be given to us with our stamps. I wanted all four stamps every week for the entire year.

There was one particular week where I missed an activity. Being 4 years old at the time, I had been playing with some friends and completely forgot to do one of the activities that week. So instead of four stars, I got three. And I was devastated. Even at age 4, I was putting the pressure on myself to be perfect. I remember knowing that my teacher and my parents were totally fine with the fact that I hadn’t been “perfect” that week. They told me I was still an excellent student and they loved me unconditionally. But this event rocked my world.

Fast forward to Kindergarten and we were practicing reading out loud. Our class was participating in the 100 Book Challenge where we read a book every night to ensure that we could enter 1st grade already reading.

I remember wanting to read the book out loud perfectly from start to finish. If I messed up a word, I’d start over at the beginning and start reading again. I remember one night, I was having particular trouble with one book. The words were challenging me and I kept stumbling on them. My mom told me that it was completely fine and that I didn’t have to be perfect, but I kept doing it again and again. I remember being so frustrated and upset with myself that I started crying.

So you can see that from a very young age, I was driven by perfection. Although my parents did encourage me to do well in school, they weren’t hard on me by any means. I was internally driven to be perfect, really for no one else, other than myself.

I continued feeding this internal need to be perfect as I continued in school. Academically, I wanted to make straight A’s and athletically, I wanted to be the best dancer on our drill team.

But then, it all came to a head when my perfectionism grew to dangerous levels and fostered a serious eating disorder. This started my senior year of high school and carried over into my first couple of years in college.

I wanted to be perfect in whatever I focused on - and my focus had become on my weight and my looks at that point in my life.

So this is why I describe myself as a recovered raging perfectionist.

For me, an eating disorder is what it took for me to realize the damage that my perfectionism was causing. It was damaging myself - both physically and mentally - but it was also damaging my relationships.

When I finally realized this, I knew it was time to break this negative way of thinking. With a lot of mental work, I eventually overcame this eating disorder and through this experience, I also learned how to embrace imperfection. I could spend a whole podcast episode talking about the work I did to overcome the eating disorder, but that’s not what I’d like to focus on today.

Today, I want to talk about how to let go of perfection because not doing so has the power to rob you of your health, your relationships, and your quality of life.

And I’m not exaggerating here. Research shows that perfectionism is associated with serious depression, chronic anxiety, and a whole host of health problems.

Why Do We Desire To Be Perfect?

Why do we want to be perfect? It’s a form for wanting to control ourselves and our surroundings. As human beings, we have a tendency to want to control things. Why? Because it makes us feel better. The more in control we feel, the more certain we feel about our desired outcome, which then boosts our well-being. But can the desire for control undermine our happiness? Yes, it can. When your desire to control an outcome reaches the level of perfectionism, that is when it can cause damage. There’s a fine line between wanting to achieve our goals and ruthlessly obsessing about achieving our goals.

The definition of perfectionism is the refusal to accept any standard short of perfection. If you’ve listened to some of my previous podcast episodes, I talk a lot about acceptance. Acceptance is the path to change and growth. But by its very definition, perfection is a refusal of acceptance.

Therefore, it’s actually a particular form of unhappiness. Perfectionism is sneaky like that because on the outside, people that are perfectionists seem highly accomplished and highly organized. It looks like they have their life together, right? But on the inside, deep down, they are trying to control and they are unhappy.

If you asked a perfectionist today if they were happy - they’d probably say yes. They may even believe that they are happy. But as a recovered raging perfectionist, I can tell you that I actually was profoundly unhappy. And that unhappiness was manifesting itself as perfection and a need to control my outside world.

Now, I’m not saying that if you’re high achieving, you’re unhappy. There’s a way to be highly accomplished without being a perfectionist. I’m also not saying that if you’re organized and have your life together, that you’re a perfectionist. Being organized and having your life together is possible without being a perfectionist.

Lies that Perfectionists Tell Themselves

I was in the Honors College at my university. I had a professor who asked to see me outside of class about once a month. I could tell that he wanted to help me with my eating disorder. I remember him asking me, “What do you think will happen if you ease up on yourself? Do you really think that you’ll fly off the handle? Do you believe you’ll spin into chaos?”

Now at the time, I wasn’t ready to change, so I wish I could say that these words snapped me out of it but they didn’t. But I do distinctly remember my professor’s questions to me because I knew he was right.

For some reason, perfectionists start convincing themselves of this lie that if the world outside them is not in control and perfect, chaos will undoubtedly ensue. They start to believe that if they are not 100% perfect in all facets of life, their life will somehow enter into complete disarray.

But the truth of the matter is, if you’re a high achieving, organized person, you won’t swing from one end of the pendulum to the other if you start letting yourself make mistakes. You’ll still achieve. You’ll still be organized. You just won’t be perfect.

The drive for perfection stems from an inner feeling of unhappiness or chaos. So we try to control our outside world in order to feel better on the inside. But that’s not how life works. There’s nothing in this world that you can control but yourself and your thoughts.

And really, by trying to control the world outside you, you’re saying that it’s not enough. The world around you is not enough. The people around you are not enough. Your life is not enough.

Embrace Uncertainty

So how can we free ourselves from the mental prison that perfectionism creates? We must embrace uncertainty.

Now I know - embracing uncertainty is much easier said than done. But it’s imperative that we understand why this is the way out.

When you try to control an outcome, it may give you temporary satisfaction but it will always be fleeting. Because control is temporary. And life is uncertain by nature. So if you try to play this game of controlling your life, you’ll inevitably fail.

Now I’m not saying that we just give up entirely and stop trying altogether. If you have been asked to speak in front of a group of people, I’m not telling you to just get up there and wing it because life’s uncertain and there’s no point of trying for a positive outcome. On the contrary, I encourage you to practice.

But it’s what’s going on inside of your head that makes the difference. Are you practicing for perfection and mentally beating yourself up for every mistake you make? Or are you practicing from a place of love because you want it to be the best it can be, yet you’ll forgive yourself for any imperfections that may happen along the way?

As I said before, perfectionism is the refusal to accept a standard less than perfect. It’s a refusal of acceptance. Therefore, the opposite of perfection is acceptance.

And I can already feel all of your perfectionists out there recoiling at the thought of acceptance. Because you find solace in control. I know this because I was there. There were times where I’d try to ease up on myself, then something less than perfect would happen in my life, and I’d go back to mental lockdown mode for fear that I’d spiral out of control.

But what you’re really doing when you’re trying to control is resisting. You’re ultimately resisting whatever life is throwing at you in that moment. And as I’ve discussed with you before, when you resist something, it grows stronger. It’s only when we practice acceptance, when we can actually move forward.

So what do we need to accept? Ourselves. Happiness lies in self-acceptance. Peace lies in self-acceptance. It’s a practice of self-love. It’s learning how to love yourself unconditionally despite your flaws and missteps in life.

It’s a willingness to keep practicing and trying again from a place of love, not hate. It’s changing the thinking in your head from, “I’ve got to get this right because I need to be perfect,” to “I want to get this right because I want to be the best version of myself.” Can you hear how one comes from a place of intolerance and hate while the other comes from a place of acceptance and love?

Letting go of perfectionism doesn’t mean your life will crumble before your eyes. It doesn’t mean that you’ll spiral into chaos. On the contrary, it will expand your happiness. It will deepen your relationships. It will inspire curiosity of what’s possible in your lifetime.

Letting go of perfectionism doesn’t mean that your fears or anxieties will go away. You’ll still likely be nervous about that exam or anxious about that presentation. But it will lessen the effect of those emotions and help you push through them more easily.

Try to appreciate the uncertainty rather than fight it. How do we do this? We get our lives organized first. See I told you we weren’t going to spin into chaos! On the contrary, when we are organized and feeling like our life is in control, we can more easily accept the uncertainties in life because we’ll know that it won’t blow up our world in front of our eyes.

It really all comes down to balance - which is why I have a symbol of balance tattooed on my left inner wrist. It serves as a constant reminder to myself to strive for balance in all things.

Mentally Prepare

Another way that I embrace uncertainty is to mentally prepare myself for it. Let me explain what I mean.

Back during my years as a raging perfectionist, we were on vacation as a family in Hawaii. My dad very generously set up a golf appointment for my sister and I and two other family friends. Now, these family friends were two young and very attractive brothers. And as a 17 year old, I was excited but also nervous - I was pretty shy back in high school. On top of that, I had never golfed before in my life.

My sister was naturally pretty good at swinging from her volleyball years, while I felt like the golfing stance was rather awkward. My sister hit the ball off the tee and it sailed. It was my turn, and I couldn’t hit the ball off the tee. Because I was a perfectionist, I was mortified and frustrated beyond words. I pouted the entire rest of the game refusing to play anymore and just watched my sister laugh and have fun as they all attempted to golf. None of us were pros. It was all just supposed to be a fun way to spend a day in Hawaii.

But I was so caught up in my head that I was incapable of enjoying the day for what it was and for just having a fun time. I was sitting there, holding back hot, angry tears, thinking about how unimpressive I must look to the cute boys.

Ironically, those boys could care less if I was good at golf or not, but because I was sulking in the cart, I gave the impression that I was stuck up. So it was a self-fulfilling prophecy - I became unimpressive to these cute boys not because of my lack of golf skills but because I had shut down and stopped interacting entirely. So yeah, that becomes unimpressive and annoying fast. To this day, I regret the way I acted in that moment because in hindsight, I had acted like a spoiled, bratty child.

And that’s what perfectionism can do to us. It can rob us of a good time. It can rob us of enjoying ourselves and the company of others.

Now fast forward to the first time I ever skied before. I was in Colorado and I had a personal instructor helping me to ski. At this point, I had let go of perfection, so I was excited for what the day would bring. Before I started the day, I mentally prepared myself. I knew it was going to be challenging. I knew I would make mistakes. I knew I would fall a ton. But I also promised myself that I would forgive myself and not let it take away from my enjoyment of trying to learn something new.

I’m positive that it would have been a complete disaster if I had tried to learn how to ski while I was still a raging perfectionist. I would have fallen once - maybe twice - and then the barrage of hateful thoughts would begin. And I would have ended up quitting and sulking the rest of the day.

But I mentally prepared myself for the challenge that lay before me and I decided how I wanted to show up that day. I wanted to try hard but not pressure myself to be perfect. I told myself, “Brittany, you’re enough whether you get up on your skis today or not. Try something new and enjoy the experience. There’s nothing you need to prove today. You’re perfectly worthy as you are.”

And then I set out there and tried to give it my all! And guess what - for the first two hours, I fell constantly. No matter what I did or what the instructor said, I couldn’t seem to get in the right groove.

The raging perfectionist in me would have worried that I was frustrating the instructor or wasting his time. But the recovered perfectionist in me knew that the instructor could care less whether I skied or not. He was getting paid for his time either way. Of course he’d be happy to see me ski but I refused to put false pressure on myself to perform a certain way.

I was pretty bruised up by lunch time and I have to admit that at that time, I was thinking about throwing the towel in. But after re-fueling with some more food, I asked my instructor if we could get back out there.

And in the very last hour of our session, something finally clicked. And I was skiing down the mountain! I definitely crashed a couple of times - don’t worry, no one got hurt - but I made it down the mountain in one piece! And I couldn’t have been more exhilarated. I was ecstatic that I did it. And I knew that part of the reason why I was able to ski that day was because I unconditionally loved myself and fully accepted that I would try my best and expect nothing more from the experience.

What’s Possible When You Let Go of Perfection

And here’s the funny thing - I thought that being a perfectionist was what gave me confidence. But it was a false exterior sense of confidence that was eroding away on the inside due to my regular bouts of self-sabotage.

When I learned to embrace uncertainty and accept myself as enough, my confidence actually grew to my surprise. The more I embraced uncertainty, the greater my confidence grew because I had accepted that as long as I show up, failure doesn’t matter.

Here’s what also happened - I learned how to have fun again. I was laughing more. I was present more. I started building genuine friendships. I stopped caring so much about myself and started thinking about others. Life was so much more exciting and fun when I stopped pressuring myself to be perfect.

Accepting imperfection is to accept the human experience. Resisting imperfection is rejecting what it means to be human. When you give yourself permission to make mistakes, you open yourself up to creativity and possibility. Because you know that the experience, no matter how messy it is, will help you learn and grow.

That’s what I want my story to be about. Not the mistakes but the growth from them. Not the perfection but the beauty from imperfection. I’m not going to dwell on the mistakes or failures or imperfections because they are all a part of the process.

When you see a successful person, you probably think, “Gosh, they’re so perfect. They do that so perfectly.” But under that success was a mountain of failures. The difference is that that person didn’t let those failures stop them. They chose to learn from them and keep going.

That’s what a growth mindset looks like - which is the mindset I’ve adopted today. When I was a raging perfectionist, I had a fixed mindset. I falsely believed that if I couldn’t be perfect at it, I should avoid it. So I avoided the very things that would help me grow into the woman I wanted to be.

But when I shifted my mindset to one of growth, I was no longer afraid to try new things. I wasn’t afraid to fail. Because that was how I was going to learn and get better.

And this is something that I teach more in my online course, Vision Voyage. We delve into the topic of fixed mindsets versus growth mindsets. And I am happy to say that I’m living proof that you can adopt a growth mindset if you’re presently feeling stuck in a fixed mindset. That’s something that we work on together in my course.

So what I’m saying is that letting go of perfection means that you’ll get to live - truly live. As a raging perfectionist, I was sitting on the sidelines of life. I was watching my life pass me by. I was in the world but not participating. But when you can let go of that perfection, you can start to live.

Have you ever been in the presence of someone who embraced their imperfection? Wasn’t it so refreshing? Isn’t it liberating to be around a person like that? It puts you at ease and everyone around you can relax. That person is refreshing because they’re not trying to be something or someone they’re not. They are just unapologetically who they are and they give us permission to do the same.

And that’s a magnetic quality, isn’t it? We want to be around others who make us feel good about ourselves. We don’t like feeling like we have to walk on eggshells around others. People who embrace their imperfections are attractive because they are in alignment. They’re aligned with their core values. They are true to themselves.

There’s truth in imperfection. And it’s beautiful. Stop living on the sidelines of your life and start participating - go all in, imperfections and all.