By Marianne Morgan Carmelo –Education degree student
Perfectionism can become a life obstacle. People think that they must do everything perfect and they need things to be as expected, and they never do something or act in a way that will affect their expectations and the way others look at them. Many people that can’t reach perfectionism tend to face many obstacles that eventually will affect them negatively in their lives. Perfectionists don’t believe that failing is one of the best ways to learn and get better. Life is about facing challenges, there is no need to follow a perfect plan and expect the best from ourselves. People learn from their mistakes.
People who are perfectionists believe that everything must be done in a perfect and special way. They will be always expecting the best of themselves. To reach those expectations, they tend to demand themselves in a way that sometimes can become unhealthy, and set high standards that are difficult to achieve. Demanding yourself can be something good and can give you good results in life, for example, having perseverance and fighting to accomplish goals and expectations, but achieving perfectionism is hard and mostly impossible. For people who cannot reach that point of perfectionism, it can make them feel defeated. Demanding ourselves in an abusive way can become a big obstacle because when those perfect plans and expectations are truly high these people tend to not accomplish them, which make them feel useless, causing lots of self-damage.
Perfectionists need everything to be exactly as they plan and expect, but, in reality, every single human faces new and unexpected challenges that they have to deal with. For these people, when they face unexpected situations it becomes a big obstacle for them, because they don’t know how to react, since it is something they didn’t have in mind, neither planned. One of the biggest obstacles perfectionists confront is the way they feel when things aren’t as they wanted. They tend to feel uncomfortable being in a place or in a situation that wasn’t in mind or didn’t reach their expectations. They also feel shamed and hopelessness when they can’t be perfect and can’t manage a situation. This causes personal and even mental damage.
People who think that they must do everything perfect tend to never take the chance to do risky things and avoid life challenges, because there is always the possibility of affecting and changing their expectations. Perfectionists have a tendency to have a good structured plan of their life for it to be perfect, and have an ideal image of how they need to be. Also, they prefer not to challenge themselves with new things because there is a chance of failure. Failing affects them in the way they feel about themselves, they lose hope of their expectations and they think the worse of how others think about them, because it makes them feel defeated. These people want others to see how perfect they are and how everything they do is truly planned. This is an obstacle they face in life. Life is about taking risks, be out of the normal and to stand out, not for being perfect, but because of being unique, original and flexible.
Perfectionists don’t believe in mistakes. The big question is, what happens if they fail? People who are looking for perfection and can’t reach perfectionism tend to suffer and face true obstacles. These people have low confidence, low self-esteem, poor motivation and, somehow, that affects their proactivity and even their social interactions. Failing makes them feel tormented because they feel incapable of achieving their expectations. The big problem of perfectionism is that failing for them is not an option neither a choice. We live in a society where the way we truly learn is from mistakes, we benefit from them and grow. Perfectionists don’t realize that it is all right and acceptable to make mistakes and to learn from them. They are being auto evaluated by themselves in everything they do. When they can’t achieve perfectionism or can’t accomplish their expectations, they shouldn’t feel defeated.
