Is Perfection Holding You Back?

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I’ve dealt with perfectionism and people pleasing for as long as I can remember.

It wasn’t until my husband and I were first married, that I started to break my perfectionistic tendencies.

We lived in an old single-wide mobile home in a trailer park. That meant I had no yard to plant flowers which is something I love to do.

It was also hard to hang things on the wall to decorate the way I wanted. I wished so badly that we could move to a better home.

But we lived in our single-wide for much longer, and I often felt discouraged.

Then a few years after I got married, I came across this lady who called herself The Nester. I read her book The Nesting Place: It doesn’t have to be perfect to be beautiful. (affiliate link)

Her words changed the way I thought about our home and were the fist step in breaking my perfectionistic tendencies.

She said home is wherever you are, and “It doesn’t have to be perfect to be beautiful.”

She challenged me to be content right where I was by making my current home beautiful instead of waiting for my one day house.

So I painted walls and cabinets, figured out how to hang things on the wall, and rearranged furniture.

And you know what?

I started to like my home. I learned to make the best of it and find contentment where I was.

Waiting for the perfect home was paralyzing me from doing things I wanted to do. Things I needed to do.

We have since moved from that first home, and our current home isn’t perfect either. But I’ve come to a place where I am okay with all of the imperfections.

I share a lot about managing the home, but I hope you never think I want you to aspire to perfection.

The Dangers of Perfectionism

1. Perfectionism leads to procrastination.

You put things off because you’re afraid of doing things the “right way”.

Maybe you know you should start a morning routine but you don’t because it won’t look perfect with kids. Just take the first step and forget about doing it perfectly.

My morning routine isn’t perfect. It gets interrupted and moved around and sometimes neglected.

But that doesn’t stop me from getting up each morning and accomplishing what I can.

2. Perfectionism leads to comparison.

One of the things that The Nester said in her book was that you are creating a home for your family and NO ONE ELSE.

You’re free to make the best decisions for your home and you don’t have to worry about anyone else’s opinion.

It’s easy to compare yourself to other people whether it’s online or in real life.

Usually, you are only seeing the perfectly curated version that others allow you to see.

But instead of comparing yourself to that person, use it as inspiration. Only compare yourself to the person you were yesterday.

3. Perfectionism is controlling.

When you always want circumstances, yourself, or other people to be perfect, you are expecting to have control.

But being a mom and a wife has taught me that I cannot control other people. Yes, I can train my children to do what is right.

But ultimately, they make their own decisions.

I will never have perfectly behaved or “normal” acting kids. And that is okay.

I’ve learned to let them be themselves. When they misbehave there are consequences, but I don’t expect them to be perfect.

And really letting of of perfection means letting go of control.

I’m currently reading a book called No Perfect Parents.(affiliate link) And it has reminded me to give control to God.

How to Stop Being a Perfectionist

1. Take control of your thoughts.

Your actions start out as thoughts so that’s where you’ve got to start. Don’t let negative or untrue thoughts run wild in your mind.

Stop letting those negative thought patterns continue to roam free in your mind. The Bible calls it taking every thought captive in 2 Corinthians 2:5.

As a perfectionist, you probably have thoughts such as:

“They’ll never like me if I don’t….”

“I’ll never be good enough at …..”

“I can never get it right.”

But are those thoughts true? Most likely, they’re not.

When you hear yourself saying those things, take those thoughts captive. Stop them from running wild in your brain and replace them truth that moves you in the right direction.

2. Be okay with good enough.

We are all broken human beings. This world is not perfect. Therefore we shouldn’t expect people and things to be perfect.

The next time you find yourself going crazy because of perfection, allow yourself to stop at “good enough”.

This way of thinking helped me clean my house a lot faster! I used to try to clean to perfection, but it took so long to do.

I finally decided that I was doing too much. So I started cleaning my house to a “good enough” state and saved myself a ton of time!

My home is meant to serve me and my family. It’s not to impress others.

3. Allow others to help you.

God created us all uniquely. We will do things differently. That doesn’t mean one way is wrong and another is necessarily right.

Letting go of perfectionism has also allowed me to accept help from my kids and husband around the house.

They don’t fold clothes or vacuum they way I do, but that’s okay. I’ve given up the control.

The task still gets done just in a different way. Instead of thinking about how it didin’t happen my way, I choose thankfulness.

I thank my kids and husband for helping. If it truly needs done in a different way, I’ve learned to kindly explain it rather than getting upset.

4. Just start.

As I stated earlier, perfection leads to procrastination. If you wait for circumstances to be perfect, you’ll often never start.

There is usually never a perfect starting point for anything. You simply have to decide to start where your are with what you have.

One of my favorite quotes is “Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.”

Don’t let perfection get in the way of creating the home and life you love!

This is something I go more in depth in my course The Motivated Homemaker Blueprint. If you’ve struggled with perfection at home, I invite you to join the course.

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