I am a perfectionist.

Yeah, you know, just me being a perfectionist as usual…

There is a nice sling to it, saying that you are a perfectionist. To many who identify as such, it almost stands as a proclamation that they feel a bit superior to others. After all, while others are going about, comfortable with their imperfections, not caring at all about setting a perfect trail for themselves, a perfectionist is the sort of person who strives for flawlessness. This is often accomplished through fixating on imperfections, trying to control situations, working hard, and/or being critical of the self or others.

I am not a perfectionist, but I believe that, like every other person, there are times in which I feel a streak of perfectionism trying to seep into my life, especially when it comes to my writing. This, as I am sure a good number of writers would profess, really does have a way of rearing its ugly head whenever I sit down to write.

I guess this is a time to give a bit of a story.

As I explained in the previous post, for some years, I have been struggling with resuscitating my writing career, and part of the reasons for this is that I have been letting perfectionism tie me down.

I let the plague of perfectionism seep into my writing after taking a gap year from writing to prepare for my WAEC. By the time I was done with my graduation and I decided that I was going to go back to writing amidst the backdrop of different people asking me when I was going to release my next book, I realised that unlike before, I just could not bring myself to write the way that I used to.

The reason and one that I discovered much later in life was simple. Before, I just wanted to be a good writer. Writing to me was almost like a hobby. But by the time I graduated, I was taking writing as a possible career path that I might want to chart. So no longer was I wanting to be a good writer, I wanted to be a perfect one. But sadly, I was coming to the harsh reality that there was a chance that I was not really one at all.

This led to a lot of terrible downfalls for me. For instance, every failure that I faced seemed to, instead of pushing me to work harder, cripple me as all kept pointing out my inadequacies. I produced quite a few ideas for my next novels but ended after a few pages as I realised that what I was writing was just not as perfect as I wanted the works to be.

I was very harsh on myself during that time. During times in which I would sit down and not be able to type for very long before wearing out, I berate myself for being lazy, unserious, and indisciplined. There were just so many harsh words of self-criticism that one could take.

After some time, with the painful failures and what I felt were signs of having writer’s block, the fear of experiencing yet another one of those failures, and I just stopped writing for a long while.

Of course, I have long realised that striving for that was nothing short of silly, as there is nothing like a perfect writer.

Luckily, I do not have perfectionism as a distinct personality trait, and it has only ever soared its head in my writing.

But for many, perfectionism is a trait in their lives that get to follow them on whatever projects they set out to do. Sure, they do produce optimal, high-quality work, and most of them are high achievers, but sadly, it has been proven that such persons tend to achieve even less than the regular high achievers.

There is a chance that you all might know a perfectionist, or might identify as being one. With the current push towards productivity in the workplace and the results-based environment in which it is made clear that one has to be perfect to stand out, the rate of people that identify as perfectionists has never been higher.

I did a recent mini poll on Linkedin, asking career people whether they identified as perfectionists or not, and currently, with the votes that I have gotten, it is clear that there are, with a narrow margin, a lot more career people that think they are perfectionists than those that do not. Of course, this is based off my research. But extended research does show that there are a lot more people identifying as perfectionists and that the rates of people who are beginning to develop attributes connected to the perfectionists keep growing at an exponential rate.

Now, I believe that while some who say that they are perfectionists are, some people do not understand what being a perfectionist means and identify as one because they have traits that are not quite perfectionist but are similar in some respects. I also believe that some may be confusing being a high flier as being the same as a perfectionist. Setting high goals, striving to be the best, and wanting to achieve excellence, while being traits that can also be found in perfectionists, are not exclusive to them. One may have those attributes and be just a high flier and not a perfectionist, especially if one has those attributes minus the negative baggage that perfectionism has to offer.

And then others do not have it as a distinct personality trait but strive to be known as perfectionists because society and the fact that it has a positive connotation with the word, ‘Perfect’, makes it sound like a positive trait to have.

And that is dangerous. Because despite its pleasant name and association with high fliers and outstanding people, perfectionism has a lot of ugly horns rearing behind what appears to be its nice façade.

 

PERFECTIONISM AND SELF CRITICISM

The perfectionist has a very low tolerance for imperfection and anything short of flawless. This extends to both the person’s life and that of the other people that the perfectionist might be working with or might be related to.

For a perfectionist, not being perfect is similar to being a failure and there is no in between. Hence, if the person creates anything that is not completely perfect and flawless, the person does not get satisfied with just the knowledge of the fact that the person did a good job, but heavily criticizes him or herself for being imperfect.

This is particularly worse when the person fails in something that that person believed he or she could be perfect in. While high fliers might learn their lesson and move on, perfectionists tend to remain on the ground and eat themselves up, being hard on themselves for not being the perfect beings that they would like to be.

Again, perfectionists have impossibly high standards for themselves and hence, failures and deficiencies in them might lead to depression, low self-esteem, shame, and several other negative qualities. Of course, they try to battle these feelings by striving to be more perfect, but because no human can be perfect, this just leads to a negative, toxic cycle that never ends.

 

PERFECTIONISM AND STAGNANCY

Believe it or not, in case you have not yet been convinced, perfectionism can bring down a person’s chances of achieving things or becoming successful in life.

Perfectionism has been linked to the tendency to give up more easily when faced with challenges, the tendency to procrastinate or be fixed in one spot in life due to fear of failure.

For instance, a mere high flier may feel bad after a failure, but a perfectionist almost gets crippled by it, saddened, depressed, angered, and may even feel guilt and shame as a result of failures. Hence, due to the fear of experiencing another one of those failures, such a person might withdraw and stop doing that activity altogether.

Again, a perfectionist is much slower in producing and creating things or bringing about ideas. While a high flier might deem himself done the moment that he or she has created something good, a perfectionist would keep nit-picking at the project long past when it is necessary, always trying to find an error that the person can fix, a rough edge that the person can smoothen out. And hence, the rate of productivity of the said person ends up being much lower than that of a high flier.

 

PERFECTIONISM AND CONTROL

The perfectionist is often a control freak, his or her need for perfection driven by the need to achieve perfect control of everything in his life, his career, his personal life, and even other people. This is why any inconsistencies, any derails from the perfect path that they have set out for themselves are usually met with a breakdown and intense negative emotions.

This does not only extend to his life but the lives of others. This is why the perfectionist is a very difficult person to work within a team. When a person has such high standards for himself, this tends to extend to all those around him. Such a person does not understand or have much patience for other normal people who do not have such high standards for themselves. In fact, a typical perfectionist will look down on those that do not have standards for themselves, regarding them as being inferior to him or herself whilst, in the most contradictory turn of events, will most often be suffering from self-esteem issues of his own as well.

As a result, the perfectionist is that person that you all cannot stand, even though you all appreciate that the person produces the most optimal of works. Such a perfectionist ends up making people distance from him and has very few friends of his own.

 

PERFECTIONISM AND TOXIC PRODUCTIVITY

Sadly, there is a deep correlation between perfectionism and toxic productivity. Toxic productivity can be defined as essentially an unhealthy desire to be productive at all times, at all costs. It’s the need to go the “extra mile” at work or home, even when it’s not expected of you.

With the drive to be perfect at whatever you are doing, two instances occur. One is that perfectionism can cripple you, as I have explained before, making it impossible for you to achieve all of the high goals you set for yourself due to the intense pressure, anxiety, and fear of failure that guides you throughout whatever you set out to do.

Or you can due to the drive to be perfect, end up not being aware of when to stop and push yourself to overachieve to the point of having a mental and physical breakdown. Perfectionism and toxic productivity are a deadly duo because they ensure that one puts every other thing on the line to pursue the need to be perfect in all ramifications, and as we all know, this never ends well for the person in question.

 

PERFECTIONISM AND MENTAL HEALTH

A lot of people attribute their sense of self to their performance. But the rate is even higher for perfectionists. And hence, they do not take downfalls or inadequacies in themselves so easily. It has been shown the higher the perfectionism inherent in a person, the more psychological disorders the person is going to suffer. Perfectionists are more prone to having breakdowns and serious health issues over the usual downfalls of life. In fact, it has been shown that perfectionism is linked to depression, anxiety, obsessive-compulsive disorder, insomnia, chronic fatigue syndrome, chronic headaches, etc.

There is even a mental illness and eating disorder that is called the illness of the perfectionists, and that is anorexia. Many anorexics are tied down by the need to attain the perfect body. And hence they are willing to let go of food, exercise past the healthy amount, especially given their size, and suffer from the sharp pangs of hunger and pain just so that they can attain the perfect and ideal body.

The fact is, perfectionism does not just hurt a person’s chances of actually being successful, but it has terrible consequences on a person’s mental health and perception of self.

 

There are certain key things that we can learn from the life of a perfectionist. Some of their attributes that can be said to be good, relatively speaking, of course, are: their beliefs that they can be the best, which backs up their strive towards achieving very high and seemingly unattainable goals, and the fact that on occasions in which they come out with something, the said project is usually very high quality.

While we can incorporate those attributes in our lives, we all should be careful to ensure that in the bid to be high fliers, we do not let perfectionism cripple every step of the way.

 

This is coming a bit late, but here are the personal growth books that I read in the month of June. I did read other books of other genres, but I will be highlighting and talking about them in my next book lover journals blog post.

1. Spiritual direction by Henri Nouwen

This has to be one of the best Christian books that I have read in a while. This particular book went to great lengths in explaining so many things that have been a source of concern to me as a growing Christian.

This was not a full book written by Henri Nouwen, but according to the publishers, a collection of the essays that he wrote during his lifetime.

According to the author, the goal of spiritual direction, which is essentially having a community of Christians to guide you along the way in your spiritual life, is spiritual formation, which is the ever-increasing capacity to live a spiritual life from the heart. 

And he states that three disciplines or spiritual practices are useful as one engages in the spiritual direction relationship. These things are what will help to create space for God in our hearts. They are:

• The discipline of the heart: Consists of introspection and contemplative prayer.

 

• The discipline of the book: in which we look to God through the sacred reading of the bible and other spiritual writings.

 

• The discipline of the church or community of faith: Requires us to be in a relationship with the people of God, witnessing to the active presence of God in history and community.

The author spends the rest of the book elaborating on the above listed and he stated a few insights that particularly stuck with me as I read the book.

• Our lives are not problems to be solved but journeys to be taken with Jesus as our friend and finest guide.

• Living into a new way of self-understanding and spiritual depth is aided by having a sturdy spiritual companion or soul friend.

• To be a witness means to offer your own faith experience and to make your doubts and hopes, failures and successes, loneliness and woundedness, available to others as a context in which they can struggle with their humanness and quest for meaning.

• Community is not some sentimental ideal place or time where everybody lives together, loves each other, and always gets along. That is never going to happen. Rather, in living together, we come to realise that community doesn’t require or offer total emotional harmony. It offers us the context where we try to love one another and receive the love and care of others.

• If we want other people to give us something that only God can give, we are guilty of idolatry.

• Finding a spiritual director begins with prayer.

If you are a Christian that is currently struggling and trying to grow in his or her spiritual life, I believe that this is for you. In fact, the title of the book is a bit limiting when looking at the amount of information and spiritual knowledge that can be found inside it. It has taught me some great life lessons and I believe that it will do the same for you as well.

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2. 13 things mentally strong people don’t do by Amy Morin 

This is a book that was written by a therapist who wrote it on the brink of trying to cope with a plethora of losses in her life. In the book, she highlights some key attributes that people who have been able to develop their mental strength, which she states is about improving your ability to regulate your emotions, manage your thoughts, and behave in a positive manner, despite your circumstances.

She states some things to note about mental strength, saying that it is not about acting tough, not about ignoring emotions, not about having to be completely self-reliant, not about positive thinking, and not about chasing happiness. She even goes as far as to say that it is not synonymous with mental health but is instead more about building a sort of mental resilience over the storms of life.

The author then proceeds to list out the 13 things that mentally strong people do not do. Six out of the thirteen that were really interesting and inspiring to me were:

1. They don’t waste time feeling sorry for themselves.

2. They do not shy away from change.

3. They do not focus on things that they cannot control.

4. They do not resent other people’s successes.

5. They do not fear taking calculated risks.

6. They do not worry about pleasing everybody.

With each of the chapters, the author narrates stories of her clients that have battled with the issues and how they were able to overcome their difficulties in a way that is very motivational and pushes one to begin to think of ways of changing one’s life.

So, I do think that it is a very nice book and one that is worth reading by all.

 

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 3. The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg

I believe that this book can be stated to be the worthy predecessor to the sensational bestselling book titled, “Atomic Habits by James Clear”. Now, this does not mean that they both basically say the same thing. Even though they deal with the same issue of habits, they do have approaches that are a bit distinct, and to be honest, I found out learning more from Atomic Habits but enjoying The Power of Habit more.

This book is not just filled with tips such as the importance of understanding cues when it comes to being able to maintain habits, and being able to understand the environmental factors that may cause one to develop a habit and find it very difficult to let go of that habit, but is also filled with a lot of research and examples of the ways that countrywide or personal habits were able to be transformed by using the rules of habit change.

Essentially, according to the book, new habits are created by putting together a cue, a routine, and a reward, and then cultivating a craving that drives the loop. And the golden rule of habit change is that if we keep the same cue and the same reward, a new routine can be inserted.

This, according to the writer, was what was able to make a former addict and smoker completely transform her life, was able to bring America into the habit of brushing their teeth, was able to get a majority of the country to begin to like a new song that was once hated and so on.

The author also touches different other subject matters, like the idea of keystone habits, which are the habits that, when they start to shift, dislodge and remake other patterns. He also touches on the topic of willpower and habits, the concept of priming of the environment, habit tracking, and so much more.

It is a great read, if you are a person that loves to dive, not only into practical lessons but research, studies, and stories that prove the effectiveness of the lessons being taught but if you want a book that goes more straight to the point in terms of habit change, I would suggest that you read ‘Atomic Habits’ by James Clear. Both books are wonderful and very effective either way.

So there you have it, the books that I read during the previous month. What about you? What books have you gotten around to reading these past few months?

 

Have you ever worked as hard as you can to get something, be something, only to fail after being almost certain that you would succeed?

Have you ever felt the soul-crushing wave of defeat that usually takes over people at times like that, that feeling of defeat that grows and develops into the feeling of resignation, the feeling that eventually leads to your giving up on the one thing that you were sure that you were able to be successful in?

Have you ever had that soul-sinking feeling of realising that the dreams that you have had for years, the fantasies of the life that you felt would be yours might not, might never actually come to pass?

I am sure that we all have had times like this, times in which we have had to deal with the reality of the fact that hard work is not necessarily what guarantees success and that there is a possibility that you could work harder than everyone else in the room for something and still be the one to come out as the least successful.

Sure, for most people, this happens only in some endeavours and not in all of them. For me, it occurred during the time that I ventured into competitive essay writing and the occasional creative writing contests, back then between 2019 and 2020. I worked as hard as I could on the essays that I wanted to win and read as many books as I could find on academic legal writing and the likes, but somehow, I never did win, at least in the national level competitions.

It was easy for me to win in the occasional local university competitions though, those that usually had less strict criteria for success and fewer participants involved in them. But for those with difficult topics that required extensive research, huge prizes to be won, and participants that come from either around the country or around the world, I never emerged as anything. I never was able to get any of the prizes that I wanted to get, that I struggled to attain.

As for my creative writing, I was unfortunate enough to have begun a story that I had gotten into a rot in, and even though I spent that period taking course after course on creative writing and reading books on creative writing, I was not able to find a way around the story that I had come up with. In an even sadder turn of events, I had entered into several contests, one of them being a particularly grueling one that I was sure that I was going to win but ended up losing at the final stage.

And so, after the countless failures that marked the lockdown period for me, I simply lost hope in myself, in my writing abilities, both for fiction and non-fiction. By the time the school session began after the extended strike and I delved back into my academic studies, writing for me had been locked up and thrown into a trunk. I was not sure that I was ever going to be able to bring myself to write anymore; at least not in the way that I thought that I was going to end up writing.

But that did not matter, or at least that was what I told myself. I was a good law student, a great one even. I aced almost all of my papers and I, after the initial struggle, had managed to even include myself in all sorts of extra-curricular activities that I was doing great in. Of course, there were times, at least ten percent of the time, in which I would see an essay or two that was so alluring that I decided to give a shot at it, only to pass only ten percent of the time as well.

But as for my creative writing, the one that was really devastated by, the one that I had cried over, I had considered it over for me. I felt that I was never going to become the writer that I wanted to be. And it did not help that I did not get myself to sit down and think of new ideas to write about, and due to some perfectionist trait that I had, I could not get myself to be decided on a few that I came up with, thinking them not good enough to come out as a second book after such a long time of having a dry spell.

And again, it did not help that in all the visits that I went to with my parents, about seventy percent of the time, there was bound to be an interaction in which someone would ask who was the writer in the family, and then all eyes would be on me, and then I would be asked when another book would be coming up, and then I would feel like swallowing myself as I told them soon, hopefully soon.

Yep, losing hope in oneself, in one’s abilities, it sucks. It really does.

And what sucks more is the trunk load that it comes with.

I am sure that you all know what I am talking about. But here, let me list out a few of them: loss of self-esteem, shame, disappointment, embarrassment, even guilt, loss of self-respect, branding oneself as a failure and so many others.

You see, there is a difference between feeling down about a loss and completely losing hope in oneself. A lot of the time, when people, particularly those with a growth mindset, fail in an endeavour, they feel down, but after some time, if another endeavour that looks similar shows up, there is a high chance that they would hop in to try once again. But repeated failures can do things to the heart of even those with a fixed mindset.

And you know the thing that is so complicated about this? It is the fact that there are times that it could be logical to decide to pack things up, to pursue a new endeavour, to decide that there is no way that you could be good at this thing that you so desperately want to get and decide that by sticking up to this dream, this construction that you have built of yourself, you are limiting yourself, holding yourself back from the one thousand other things that you could be doing.

For instance, you would not tell someone that does not have the build of a basket baller, someone that is five feet tall and not naturally athletic that desperately wants to go against the six to seven-foot tall giants that are in the same court that he is at and that has failed consistently, for an extended time, to just keep trying and to never give up. No. if you love the person, you would sit the person down and let the person understand that there is no way that he could be successful in that endeavour and that it is time to let go of that dream and move on.

But then, should that always be the answer to consistent failure? And if not, what draws the line? If two people fail a thousand times at something, what would make someone try to make one person realise that perhaps it is time to give up while pushing the other person to try again, just one more time?

What marks the difference between when it is wrong to pack the trunk, lose hope and let go of some dreams and when it is the right thing to do?

…………………………….

I wish that I could say that I had a revelation as to the fact that perhaps, letting go of my dreams was not really the right step to take. How much I would have loved to come here and share the miraculous story of the experience that I had in which I realised that perhaps I was wrong in deciding that all was lost for me, that perhaps I was too hasty in my decision to let go of a talent that I knew that I had.

But there isn’t.

Turning back to my writing did not take overnight. It took time. The occasional fiddling that I did on my journals and my laptop, the different books that I read that did nothing but make me crave writing, even more, and the occasional times that I had a reminder that my stories were enjoyed by people. Watching my younger brother read the first book that I wrote a hundred times, not because of me, but because he liked the book that I wrote. Occasionally having someone come to me and tell me that he or she had read something that I had written and thought that it was really good.

I guess the biggest moment was when I found out about web novel writing, the avenue that I felt that I could pour all those ideas that I felt were not good enough to be in print, and then actually getting a readership on some of the books that I wrote. Eventually, it just happened. Over the strike, I realized that I was working more on my typing speed so that I could write more, and that the dream that I had always had of starting my blog had been resurrected in me. And then I realised that whatever thing that I felt, whatever it was that made me give up hope on my writing and think that there was no way that I was actually going to be able to become the writer that I always wanted to be, was gone.

……………………….

And again, the question of what made the difference comes into view. That was not the first time that I had given up on something before. I gave up on science after I encountered chemistry in SS1, I gave up on dancing by the time I entered secondary school for some reason. I gave up on wanting to enter school politics. I gave up on chess because I no longer had the time for it, on origami, and so many other things.

Like any other human being, my life has been filled with times in which I have abandoned pursuits and found other things to pursue. Of course, this occurred more as a child, but as I grow, it still happens sometimes. In a way, being able to let go of certain pursuits and take hold of others is all a part of growth.

So why, when I let go of writing for that brief period of time, did I not mark it as one of the other things that I had done many times?

I guess it was because letting go of it did not just come easy, but came from a deep feeling of failure. But that was not all. I guess it all boiled down to purpose, and to listening to my heart.

Because in the end, there is no equation that tells you when you should let go of certain pursuits and embrace another. Sure, you could say that when one’s genetics is patterned away from what the person wants to pursue, it is not really right for the person, but it is not so clear-cut out.

When should you let go of something? Give up hope of getting something? When, deep down, you know that there is some other agenda driving your obsessive need to get that particular thing, some other agenda outside of that which you have been carved out to do. When you know that obsessively pursuing that thing is preventing you from growing as a person.

Sometimes it is brave to let go of things. Sometimes, it is toxic to keep telling yourself to cling to things, onto unattainable goals, because the world keeps pushing the ‘Don’t give up’ mantra down your throat.

And when you should not? When letting go of it feels as though you have let go of a part of yourself that you are not willing to let go of, not because of whatever benefits that you think it might get you, but because, deep down, you know that this is what you are supposed to do, this is what you have been carved out to do.

When letting go of a particular pursuit makes you feel as though you have created a vacuum in your life, one that you know cannot be filled by any other thing but the thing that you have let go of.

When you know, deep down, despite the failures, despite the letdowns, the heartbreaks, the slow tear to your self-esteem, that this is what you are meant to do, that all you have to do is get better and then let the star within you shine.

Simply put, when you know that the one thing that you have been failing at is your purpose and that the fact that you failed in it does not make it any less than that.

But what if you are not sure of whether you are taking the right step by letting go of something?

Take a break. It clarified me and made me realise that I was abandoning something that I was created to do, created to reach the world with, just because I had experienced a few failures. Of course, one of two things can happen to you, but if you take that break with the idea that it is meant to give you some mental clarity, then you will get that mental clarity that you desire.

And of course, there is no better way of getting mental clarity than actually being spiritually sensitive enough to communicate with the Holy Spirit and let Him reveal to you whether your failures are a result of the fact that you are treading down the wrong path or whether they are just hurdles that you have to pass through so that you can train yourself enough to be able to be truly revealed to the world.

So are you losing hope in yourself, in your ability to do something that you have been pursuing?

Don’t give up, only if you are sure that the one thing that you are pursuing is your purpose in life and not some triviality.

And if that one thing that you are about to give up on is your purpose in life?

Don’t do injustice to yourself, to the world, because of the crushing defeat that you are feeling along the way. The fact remains that in life, there is no true easy route for anybody. Even in that one thing that you are certain is your purpose, you are still bound to meet and face obstacles that will threaten to tear down your resolve and every other thing.

But do not let your failures be the things that will cripple you, dim your light, or let you go to the grave having failed to achieve the things that you have been created to achieve. Because that is the real failure, not losing in contests or failing at applications or not growing the network that you want to grow, but not letting the failures define what steps you take, letting the failures prevent you from achieving your purpose.