Perfectionism Reexamined
Every night, before falling asleep, I would visualize myself doing my routines perfectly for the four gymnastics’ apparatuses: vault, bars, beam and floor. If I messed up in my head, I started over at one. I learned the power of visualization early on.
I only competed for one year. I won all around at sections. I won all around at regionals. I was very sick the week of state. I didn’t go to the gym all week and I was popping baby aspirin and sleeping on the mats in between rotations. My fever hovered around 103.
And yet, I competed. I won vault. I only got 6th all around. I was devastated. I hadn’t competed against the top two gymnasts before because they were from a very different part of the state. All of the others, I had beaten, repeatedly. Had I been healthy, I definitely would have been standing on that podium.
It’s 40 years later and I still wonder, “What if?”
Did you notice that I didn’t celebrate my state championship? Did you notice that I didn’t celebrate placing 6th with a high fever? Did you notice that I didn’t celebrate at all?
Sports are incredible. I honestly believed my years of competing in gymnastics, cheerleading and diving all made me a better person: more well-rounded, driven, strong ethics, lots of tenacity and tons of grit.
They also made me a perfectionist. When you are an athlete, you are always looking at what you can do to improve. Swimmer, look at your strokes. Baseball player, look at your batting. Gymnast, look at the specifics of each routine. You can ALWAYS improve. Unless of course you are Mary Lou Retton, but that’s another story.
And now, I’m unlearning all of that. I’m a recovering perfectionist. I truly believe there is beauty in the brokenness of life. We can’t appreciate how good things are until we experience bad things. We start to take the good for granted.
It wasn’t until my TBI that I started to really understand the importance of giving myself grace. I will and do mess up. All of the time. We ALL do. When you let go of that impossible standard of perfection, you start to breathe. I mean really breathe. You start to find beauty in all of life. You start to see loveliness in all that you do, even the messed up, dirty, wacky life that presents itself each morning.
Give up on that impossible ideal of perfection. You will be so much happier. Need help? Reach out.