How to Break the Cycle of Perfectionism in Midlife: 10 Easy Steps
Blog post by Heidi Gustafson
Mindset & Transformation Coach
Mastering Midlife with Heidi is dedicated to helping middle-aged women live their lives with confidence and joy, instead of merely surviving.
I’ve struggled with perfectionism most of my life.
My mom has often said to me, “You’re just like your dad” meaning, I get into the nitty gritty details like he did and worry over something being “just right.” So I thought of perfectionism just as a trait that I’d picked up from him… a characteristic that was basically about paying attention to details.
It can be difficult to sift through what we were taught as kids — especially when it has become part of our identity.
It seemed like a behavior I was choosing to do and that I could just as easily choose to NOT do it.
But as I learned more about our unconscious minds, I discovered this isn’t the case.
If you’ve been a part of my midlife community for a while, you know that people pleasing, perfectionism, and procrastination have gone hand in hand for me for most of my life.
One fed right into the other, so it’s been my journey to not just work on one of them, but all three. The beautiful thing though is that focusing on any of the three leads to progress in the other two because they all have the same starting point.
Perfectionism’s role is that it wreaks havoc in our lives, causing us to:
👉 Doubt ourselves and lose confidence and self-esteem.
👉 Suffer from chronic stress and burnout as we constantly strive to reach these unattainable standards we’ve set up for ourselves.
👉 Limit ourselves as it keeps us from taking risks or trying new things.
👉 Put ourselves down because we think we didn’t do something good enough.
👉 Play small to avoid the pain of making a mistake or of being judged.
👉 Feel overwhelmed by even minor tasks, which can lead us straight into procrastination. Believe me… I know.
👉 Micromanage those around us as we hold them to the same unreasonable standards we hold ourselves.
So what do we do about it? How do we break this cycle of perfectionism in midlife?
Here are 10 simple steps you can take and all of them you can start today.
Psst, want to know the “why” behind perfectionism? Listen to episode 38 of my podast: Breaking Free from Perfectionism: 10 Simple Steps.
#1 — Become aware of when you get into perfectionism.
We can’t change something until we’re aware of it. Look for patterns - sometimes these patterns are blind spots until you start looking for them
Ask someone for help if something is repeating in your life and you can’t figure out what’s causing it to repeat.
#2 — Have compassion for yourself.
You can’t change what you haven’t been aware of, so no need to beat yourself up.
My friend says, “There’s no healing when there’s judgment” so be kind to yourself.
Give yourself grace for the place that you’re in.
#3 — Reframe the meaning of “perfect”
The opposite of perfect is imperfect and in Latin, the word is imperfectus, which means unfinished, incomplete!
Why does the English version mean defective or faulty? Again, it all goes back to us being meaning-making machines
When you look at being imperfect as incomplete, doesn’t it give new meaning and a freedom to it that wasn’t there before? We ALL are incomplete… our lives our unfinished until we die.
#4 — Be okay with failure - be willing to take risks
In a graduation speech, Denzel Washington said, “You WILL fail. Accept it. You’ll embarrass yourself. You will suck at something. Do you have the guts to fail? If you don’t fail, you’re not even trying.”
Reggie Jackson struck out 2600 times in his career, the most in the history of baseball. But you don’t hear about that. You remember his homeruns. Thomas Edison conducted 1000 failed experiments. On the one thousand and first, the lightbulb was created.
#5 — Realize you always have a choice
Instead of trying to figure out the “right” decision, ask yourself, “What’s the best decision for ME in my life right now?” And then take that step.
#6 — Take an inventory of your fears, and reframe them.
You can recognize your fears by the thoughts you repeat to yourself, the things you ruminate on that keep you awake at night.
A simple way to reframe a fear in the moment is to say something positive to yourself instead. Two things can’t occupy the same space at the same time, so saying something positive will push out the negative thought. (Go back to #5 and realize you always have a choice to have a different thought.)
#7 — Restrict yourself
Say whaaaat? Why would I restrict myself? Because restricting ourselves makes us more creative and can eliminate the perfectionism.
For example, if I give myself too much time to complete something, like writing this blog for instance, I get into perfection. I will keep “dinking” away at it a little at a time and keep refining and refining, when no refining is necessary. So I’ve learned to limit my time and usually I go up against the deadline of things, but it keeps me out of perfectionism. I’ve adopted the motto: “Done is better than perfect!!”
You can use this “restriction” tip with food, snacks, etc. Many times, we sneak a little something and then give up our eating plan altogether because we couldn’t do it perfectly. Limit yourself by not even having those things available.
#8 — Stop juggling all the plates to prove yourself
Ask yourself: “Do I really enjoy doing all the things I’m doing? What things am I doing because I feel I HAVE to?”
My guess is you’re doing a lot of things based on expectations you feel people have of you. To be “perfect” in those roles, you have expectations that you have to show up a certain way.
Give up these unspoken agreements. I’ve talked to many women who cook certain meals or always have dinner on the table or create stress in their life because they feel obligated to do things for their partner… things their partner is capable of doing for themselves and has never requested.
Ask yourself: “What things make ME feel good?”
This step might include having conversations with the people you feel have expectations of you.
Do they expect you to do the things you think are expected? (I think you’ll be surprised at how much YOU have put on yourself.)
Talk about what it would look like if you stopped doing the things YOU feel are expected, but that you don’t enjoy.
What compromises can be made?
Focus on how YOU want to feel. A people-pleasing behavior is to focus on how we want to make the OTHER person feel, and completely ignore how WE want to feel. Do you want to feel calm, peaceful, happy, etc? You can’t have these feelings when you’re striving to be the “perfect” wife, mom, employee, friend.
#9 — Do the “1-Page Miracle” exercise
Dr Daniel Amen has an exercise called the 1-Page Miracle. It’s available online for free.
Your brain does what you tell it is important to you, so you have to tell it what you want. What kind of person do you want to be? What do you want your relationship and job and bank account and health to look like? These are not random; they are what YOU create.
Write this out using the exercise as a guide.
Every day ask yourself: “Is my behavior getting me what I want?”
#10 — Let yourself make progress.
This sounds weird, but most times we stop before we allow ourselves to get very far. Let yourself make progress in one area of your life and see how good that progress feels.
Give it time. You didn’t develop perfectionism or any other behavior overnight… or even in the last year. Give yourself time to make progress.
Challenge yourself to complete smaller pieces and then celebrate each small piece as a completion of its own. Don’t wait until you “get there” because “there” never happens.
Celebrate yourself! It takes a shit-ton of courage to make a change to better yourself! Don’t let anyone convince you otherwise.
What would it be like to unshackle yourself from your perfectionism?
I know from personal experience that perfection keeps us from sharing our gifts - the treasures that we each were given at birth.
We hide them, telling ourselves they’re not good enough.
But we each were given unique gifts and our mission here is to bring our gifts to life and enhance other people’s lives in only the way that each one of us can do. Only YOU can bring YOUR gift to life.
Don’t let your gifts die with you and become ghosts.
On your deathbed, will you say, “I wish I had done that better - more perfectly?”
💪 Are you done with missing out on stuff because you’re scared you won’t do it right? That you’ll fail?
💪 Are you ready to let go of doing everything yourself so you know it’ll get done right?
💪 Wouldn’t it be awesome to not obsess over your house looking perfect or whether or not your bed’s made or the sink’s clean if someone were to stop over?
Many of my clients have shared that they’re afraid they won’t be accepted when people figure out “who they REALLY are.”
I want you to be accepted in SPITE of your flaws and to feel empowered to show that you aren’t perfect. You are simply incomplete, a work in progress - just like the rest of us!
The need to be perfect is strong, but the inner you is stronger! I promise.
