Is perfectionism ruining your life….

Do you constantly judge everything around you? Are you finding it hard to relax? Is your perfectionism affecting your happiness?

If yes, read on…..

Being a perfectionist is just plain tiring.  You live life constantly judging everything around you by your standards.  When things don’t measure up to being good enough in your eyes, you start criticising what you are judging and trying to make it better.  The problem is, you are judging yourself by these standards too.  For example, let’s say you have a client and the session has not gone the way you would have liked.  You start beating yourself up about it and thinking about how you could have made it even better.  It doesn’t even occur to you that your client has to take responsibility for their success of the session.  Maybe they needed to take more action to make the session work for them, but instead they just sat back and let you do all the work.  Or worse case scenario, they were a perfectionist too and whilst you were judging them, they were judging you!  Who is right in this case!!

The problem is, the more you are judging others and yourself, the more you are putting out vibes that you are not good enough and also putting people off around you as they feel that they just can’t live up to your standards.  This has certainly been a problem for me in the past.  I loved cooking for my friends and having dinner parties, but when it came to my friends returning the favour, they were afraid to cook for me! In the end, I had to always host the party and my friends would pay for ingredients!!  The sad thing is, I love being cooked for and I never expected anyone to cook to the same standard I did.  (Me judging them, without realising it) I had been professionally trained which is why what I presented for dinner looked fab but the fact is, my friends were comparing themselves to me and telling themselves they were not good enough.  I never believed this to be true, but no amount of coaxing would change their minds.

When you are comparing yourself or others to anything, this is a recipe for disaster and leads to unhappiness!  The key thing to remember is that there is no such thing as something that is perfect.  If a group of people were looking at a person at a network, or at the work of a colleague, or even the school play, what each person sees will be different.  They are filtering the information they are seeing based on past experiences and events.  Have you ever been to an event with someone, where one person thought it was fab and another thought that it was awful.  This is because they are filtering information through their minds and making a judgement.

So what are you judging and how are you judging them? How hard are you judging yourself? Are your standards just too high, so no one, including yourself can meet them? Are you isolating yourself by how you are reacting to life?

The key to happiness is to compare yourself and things/people around you to nothing.  See things for what they are and purposely act non-judgmentally. Learn from everyone you meet. Smile at everyone regardless of whether they have a posh car, are fat or thin, big or small.  Remove the prejudices of the past.  Live in the present and enjoy every moment as if it is your last.  Life is for living, not worrying about whether you are good enough.  Celebrate you and keep learning and growing and you will have a happier life.