TRAP #6 - PERFECTIONISM
Welcome to the Small Jar Podcast, where we moms of teens find the power to step off the emotional roller coaster between motherhood and the empty nest. I'm your host, Jennifer Collins. Episode number 70.
Hello, friends. So, I have COVID. Thankfully, it just feels like a bad cold.
It's actually worse than the first time I had it, but it's not terrible. I'm definitely on the mend. Back in the pre-COVID era, it's probably the kind of sickness that I would have just dealt with by taking Daycool and going about my life as usual.
Do you remember being sick with little kids? There was no taking days off. Certainly no quarantine from your kids. As disruptive as it can be to life, there's something absolutely amazing about letting yourself off the hook for five or more days.
In this virtual world, meetings go on even if you can't leave the house. But all of these in-person meetings, the errands, the obligations, it's a no. And this week, I embraced it.
This sickness was actually a long time coming. I mean, if it wasn't COVID, I think it was likely to have been something. I've been burning my candle at both ends, as my mom always liked to say, taking on a lot and not letting myself off the hook.
I know better, and yet I still find myself doing this. As I've had the luxury of being forced to let go of many things this week, I thought it would be the perfect time to explore the mindset trap of perfectionism. So just in case you haven't been following along, I'm exploring this series on common mindset traps and how they apply to us as moms with teens and as we approach the empty nest.
In past episodes, I've covered confirmation bias, catastrophizing, validation seeking, the comparison trap, and all or nothing thinking. So today's trap is perfectionism. Now, there are some among us who would call themselves perfectionists, and maybe others of us who wouldn't.
But what do you think the opposite of being a perfectionist is? Have you ever thought about that? Actually, maybe first we should take a deeper look into what perfectionism is. When you think of someone being a perfectionist in a positive light, some of us might think that a perfectionist strives for excellence or has high standards. And so from that perspective, the opposite would seem to be that someone who's not a perfectionist has lower standards or just doesn't care as much.
I want to share why this isn't the case, and actually maybe the reason it can be so hard to drop the endless effort for us to meet our own high standards. And how even those of us who don't think of ourselves as perfectionists can fall into this trap, because it's really not about being perfect. So you don't need to be a middle-aged mom to fall into any of these mindset traps, but I've been finding it fun to explore how these traps apply to us in this stage in life.
This trap of perfectionism, in particular, is heavily influenced by societal and cultural factors. So let's explore those for a moment. Now let's talk about being a good mom.
What a horrible phrase. Good mom. I've honestly never wanted to be just good at anything in my life.
Certainly not just good at anything I poured my heart and soul into. Good is obviously a very subjective word, totally dependent on the context in which you're using it. And yes, good is meant to be positive.
It's better than bad or okay. But on a scale of okay to excellent, it's just somewhere in the middle. Not excellent, maybe better than okay.
But we're socialized to think that our goal is to be a good mom. God knows that sometimes it's hard to believe that we're excellent moms. The job isn't easy.
One day we think we're doing everything right, and the next day or text or hour brings evidence of our apparent failure. Things we forgot, how we let our kids down, all of the things we should have done better in the past now that we see how it all turned out. We're not even striving for excellent.
We just want to be good. And even that seems impossible. So are we not perfectionist because we're not striving for excellence here? Or are we just realistic that excellence isn't possible? Or is all of this really just perfectionism disguised? As I said, good is relative.
And you don't have to look very far through your social media feed or on TV or anywhere around you where you see other moms who seem to have it together. We've been falling into this particular comparison trap since the moment we decided to be a mom. Before we had kids, for some reason my husband and I would randomly watch episodes of The Super Nanny.
Did you ever see that show? How this British nanny would come and school these parents who seemed to have no clue about how to raise their kids? And there were always like eight kids. So here's my husband and I with absolutely no clue how to parent. No experience of our own.
But we had so many opinions about how the parents on TV should have been doing things differently. Shame on us because I'm sure over the years The Super Nanny could have taught us a thing or two along the way. Ironically, although there might for sure be times when we as moms look at other moms with sympathy because they seem to be obviously struggling with their kids.
We more often look at other moms and kids and somehow from the outside looking in the grass looks so much greener. Look how those kids are so happy in the family picture. They seem to be having so much fun on that family vacation and I can't even get my son to talk to me.
Look, they're cooking family dinner together. She tagged her mom in the post. Look at all those kids who made honor roll.
I wonder what their mom did differently. Don't kid yourself into thinking you don't have high standards for yourself as a mom because where does it end? I've said many times on this podcast that all that we want for our kids is for them to be safe, happy, healthy, and successful. Just that.
But that seems like it's an impossibility sometimes. And there's no end to how much more we would want for them even when some or many of the boxes are checked. She got straight A's, but what if that's not enough to get into the right college? Which is the right college? He made it to college.
Now he's parting too much. He's going to fail out. Nothing short of perfection.
Our kids' constant happiness, positive outlook, and unswerving focus will convince us that our job is done. So let me ask you, is your version of being a good mom realistic or an impossibility? I know I, for one, was unprepared for the roller coaster of the teen years, the awkward stages of the tween years, the insecurity of navigating friendships, then high school and more social anxiety, mounting academic pressure, not making the team or the play. Are they getting seen or falling through the cracks? Parties, alcohol, drugs, dating, sex? Or are kids not experiencing any of those things, not going to the parties, or not having a relationship, not having a group of friends? Then there's college, college applications, all the extracurricular activities.
However your teen has navigated these challenges, there are a lot of them. And I know it's not at all clear to me what perfection would even look like. Yet I know that I've fallen into the trap of thinking of whatever is true right now that it might not be good enough, that I've not done enough.
It goes to the basic instinct we've had as a mom since the very beginning. Our desire to protect our children is innate, instinctual. And so there's no limit to the motivation we have to want to protect our children from pain, whether that be actual physical pain or the emotional pain of disappointment, rejection, anxiety, or depression.
And on this roller coaster journey of the teen years, these risks feel like they're no more than a text or a phone call away. Now we judge ourselves, but our teens judge us too. As they pull away and figure out who they are, they are absolutely going to tell us that we're doing it wrong some or maybe most of the time.
It can be hard to take when you're literally trying your best and giving it your all, and then your teen looks at you in the eye and tells you that you're the worst. It's so tempting to think that being a good mom means that we not only do the right thing all the time, but also that everyone agrees that we're doing the right thing all the time. What kind of permission are you looking for to let yourself believe that you're a good mom? I think the other conundrum we can find ourselves in is that this role, motherhood, is the most important role we've ever had in life.
Even if we've worked, no matter how many other obligations we have outside of the home, even compared to our role as a wife or daughter, the role of mom has been the most important and transformative role for the majority of us. And so in those moments when our purpose and value as it relates to our role as a mom comes into question, we can have serious questions and doubts about our identity and self-worth. For some of us, this can lead us to have difficulty letting go of our kids.
It's in part because of our need and desire to have this purpose that we can have difficulty letting go. But it's interesting to consider that the fear letting go can also be related to a need to continue to keep our children from experiencing pain, disappointment, or failure. Ask yourself, what is that standard that you're setting for your kids' happiness and success that makes us so compelled to continue to be involved in our kids' lives, beyond what might even be necessary or best for them as they attempt to learn how to live on their own? This isn't for me to judge, but it's interesting for each of us to ask ourselves, what might be driving my need for control here? And when I say control, I mean oversight of our grades, management of our kids' class schedule, a plan for how often we should communicate while they're in college.
There's no perfect model. I'm not advocating for a hands-off approach either. Every family is different.
Every child is different. But as parents, we can either take action from fear and a desire to make things perfect for our children, even though intellectually we may even know that's not possible. Or we can take action from a trust that sometimes the journey is meant not to be perfect, and that in fact that road might teach our kids more in the long run.
Who benefits from a perfect life if there is such a thing? There's so many things I want for my boys. How will I know when it's enough? Is there a point when we'll be able to put down our pencils as moms and know that we've done all we can do? I fear that there won't ever be. So here we are as moms, setting the bar for ourselves so high when it comes to our kids.
But let's not forget all of the other ways that we judge ourselves is not good enough. When our kids leave the nest, if we don't think we've cultivated an interesting career or pastime to transfer our attention to, we can think we've failed because we haven't created that balance along the way. Didn't you know you were supposed to be having it all along the way, perfectly juggling raising your 2.5 kids and a full-time career? And if all of this transition and the pull of your kids becoming independent is just too much for you, guess what? There's another area where you're not good enough.
You should be able to handle this better. As I was coming down with COVID, I rented Barbie on Netflix, and during America Ferrera's monologue, I cried like a baby. I imagine I'm not the only one.
If you've seen it, I won't quote the whole thing, but let me share a bit. And now I'm quoting. You have to be thin, but not too thin.
And you can never say you want to be thin. You have to say you want to be healthy, but also you have to be thin. You're supposed to love being a mother, but don't talk about your kids all the damn time.
You have to be a career woman, but also always be looking out for other people. You have to never get old, never be rude, never show off, never be selfish, never fall down, never fail, never show fear, never get out of line. It's too hard.
It's too contradictory, and no one gives you a medal or says thank you. And it turns out, in fact, that not only are you doing everything wrong, but also everything is your fault. There's so much more to the quote, but honestly, she's encapsulated so much of the challenge of being a woman, but even more so the challenge of being a mom.
We've been raised in a society that's created this picture of what being a good, and let's even call it what it is, a perfect mom or the perfect woman looks like. And it's honestly exhausting living up to that model. Yet the expectations are so deeply embedded in who we are that we can't drop them.
They've become values. Work hard, be selfless, make sure your kids have everything they need to be happy and successful. Not only are these hardwired values, but the opposites are unacceptable.
Don't work, be selfish, let your kids down. Who would sign up for that? When I've talked about other mindset traps, I've really wanted to dig into how these traps are actually our brain's way of helping us. It can seem counterintuitive, but in fact, there's a reason our mind sets us up to set our bar high.
So remember the motivational triad. Our primitive brain wants to avoid pain, seek safety and comfort, and to be as efficient as possible. So what is it about perfectionism that helps us accomplish this? To be honest, for the longest time I thought, and here's the part where I admit I'm a bit of a perfectionist, but for the longest time I thought that the reason I was so motivated to strive for excellence was because of the dopamine hit I would get from not only achieving big things, but also just checking things off my list.
Yes, I am one of those people who will write up a to-do list and if I've done something remotely productive and it's not on the list, I'll write it down and just check it off. But also, my lists have always been so long that it's never been humanly possible to get everything on the list checked off. So where am I left at the end of each day? Disappointed, let down, not so much fun.
While achieving things, even just tackling a to-do list, can give us both short-term and long-term pleasure if we stay committed to something and really create something significant, the real motivation our primitive brain has for perfectionism is that it gives us the illusion of safety. Let me explain. One way perfection helps us stay safe is that we think that if we can keep everything perfect, then we won't have to face any pain in the future.
It actually becomes a way that we can try to gain control over our circumstances. Just think, if we can just say the right thing or encourage our kids in the right way, if we can just show up better, then for sure they'll open up to us. They'll tell us what's wrong and then we'll fix it.
If we could just get our kid to study and put in the effort, then for sure their grades will be better and then we won't be disappointed when it's time to apply to college. If the band director would just give them a chance, if the teacher would just offer extra help, if those girls weren't so mean, if he would just get home from curfew exactly on time and not a minute later, if we could just have everything fall into place exactly as we want it to be, then things will be okay, right? It's so tempting to believe this, that we have some control. I mean, the thought that we have no control over the trajectory of our lives, or worse, over our kids' happiness and well-being? It's petrifying.
We say we don't want control, but my friend, we kind of do. If we're being really honest with ourselves, it would be really nice, because without the illusion of control, we're left to the mercy of other mindset traps, catastrophizing, the negative spiral of the worst-case scenario. There's so many things that could go wrong, and we would love to think, if we can just control everything, how much time he spends on gaming, or whether or not she eats dinner at the table, or whether or not our kid likes their college roommate, if we could just fix those things, and everything will be okay.
But here's the thing. We can't control the circumstances, particularly when those circumstances are other adult people. But because we have this illusion of our ability to control the outcomes, when we fail, then we take on all the blame.
We blame ourselves, and just to pile on, other people blame us too, particularly our kids, family members, maybe our friends. And of course, we don't want to disappoint other people. So then we have to set the bar even higher to not only meet our own impossible standards, but also the imaginary standards we've created for other people in our minds.
Or even if they have told us what they expect, we're still making up what we think they mean. How much is enough? Is it ever enough? Again, we think we'll be safe from criticism and the guilt of disappointing others if we could just be better, show up better. But again, this ability to control how other people perceive us is an illusion.
It's literally not possible. There are so many other ways perfectionism seemingly protects us. The pursuit of excellence can be a firmly held value, one that brings with it feelings of pride and self-worth.
Sometimes we can think it's about proving ourselves to others, but it always comes down to our own self-worth. What is that goal that I'm waiting to achieve that will allow me to believe that I'm worthy? It can feel safe to be striving towards some lofty goal if that's in line with your values. But what happens when you fall short? How do you treat yourself at the end of the day when you haven't achieved what you hoped you would? We ultimately just want to be safe, to have predictable, problem-free lives without criticism and judgment and guilt.
We want to avoid pain and mistakes. It seems so logical that if we just work a little harder that we can attain this. Always.
Just a little harder. But when is it enough? As you can imagine, there are downsides to perfectionism. I've already talked about the self-judgment, and if you've experienced it, it's exhausting.
It can also put a strain on our relationships with our kids and others as we attempt to create safety and predictability by controlling how others behave. I've learned from personal experience how hard a kid will try to pull away if you're holding on too tight. But at the same time, I also get that when you don't impose boundaries, that that's a recipe for disaster as well.
You can feel as if you're damned if you do and damned if you don't. I think the biggest downside of perfectionism for us moms at this stage in our life is honestly on our own emotional well-being. How much stress and anxiety do you experience on a regular basis as you agonize over how best to support your children? Thinking about the latest challenge and how to get them through it.
Looking for the right answers. Just wanting to fix it for them. And this emotional distress takes a physical toll as well as we experience sleepless nights and buffer with food or alcohol just to dull the stress a bit.
We just want to fix it. I can't tell you how many clients have said to me, I can't feel okay unless my kids are okay. I so get it.
But then there's, I can't feel okay if my family's disappointed in me. I can't feel okay unless my husband appreciates me. I can't feel okay until I find a new man, a new job, a new purpose, a new life.
What is this perfect place we're all looking for that will make all of this pain go away? If someone finds it, I hope you'll let me know. But here's the funny thing. When we tell our brains perfect isn't the goal, we both think, yeah, yeah, I get it.
I'm not trying to be perfect and yet are still literally thinking, but I'm going to try and get as close as I can to it. Again, that concept that it feels like the opposite of perfection is just giving up or not caring. But what if it's something entirely different? What would it look like to continue trying your absolute best when it mattered while also letting go of control, anxiety, and guilt that seems to come with trying to be perfect? Now I could give you a to-do list here, the top five strategies to do your best without all the stress.
I could teach you about time management and taking time for meditation. I'm sure you can find coaches that'll give you how-tos in terms of relating better to your kids. Therapists might tell you you need to set boundaries.
But what I want to offer is that you can't change a mindset problem with action. Our actions and behavior actually come from our own thoughts. So if you want to check to be sure what you're doing is in line with what you really want, then you need to understand your mind.
So before you start beating yourself up for wanting the best for your kids or setting high goals for yourself or taking on too much, before you start judging yourself even more, like, yep, I listened to your podcast today and it turns out the other thing wrong with me is that I'm a perfectionist. That is not the takeaway I want to leave you with. Instead, I want to invite you to ask yourself, what is it that you really want? What do you really want for your kids? What do you really want for your life? All of it.
Or feel free to start with the area that's creating the biggest pain point for you right now. Let's start with our kids. What is it that you really want for them? You might be thinking, I just want them to get into this college, or I want them to have nice friends, or I want him to open up to me.
It all sounds very reasonable. But then ask yourself, what do you think will happen if what you want doesn't happen? He doesn't get in. She doesn't find nice friends.
He doesn't open up. Will our brains go? Well, then they'll feel disappointed or rejected. If he doesn't open up to me, then there might be something really wrong.
And of course, when our kids are hurting, we hurt. We want to fix it. But what if our kids are going to hurt whether we step in to fix it or not? Believe me, if I could take away my kid's pain, I would.
But it's literally not possible for us to take away another person's emotional pain, or physical pain for that matter. And beyond our lack of control, there's just this aspect of life where it's not meant to be perfect all of the time. And that sounds kind of depressing until you realize that we typically grow more from the hard times and the failure than we do from the good times and the success.
I'm not saying it's easy to see your child in pain or pulling away, even rejecting you. But the truth right now might just be that your child is in pain or navigating a challenging situation. What if they don't need you to fix it? What if you were willing to not need to fix them just so you could feel better? What might their pain be trying to teach them that they need to work through on their own? And now what about you in your life? What do you really want? It's tempting to want a life entirely free of worry and sadness, but the reality is our kids are growing up.
They're leaving the nest. We're entering a chapter where we get to start again. In the same way you mostly don't want your kids to be dependent on you forever, I'm guessing that you don't really want to be dependent on your kids for your happiness either, as much as you love them and want them to be an important part of your life.
Life is inherently messy. It's the incredible high of being a mother and seeing our kids self-actualize, and then the anxiety of watching them go out into the world without us. It's the comfort of having a home full with the busy lives of our kids, and then the emptiness of the home once they leave.
Life is love and loss, pride and disappointment, triumph and fear. We've signed up for this big life by taking on this incredible role of motherhood, and it's too late to run back into the cave now. Our hearts are running around in the world and we can't protect them, not without their permission.
We also have this opportunity to create our own big life. We can control how we show up in our own lives, but we can't control other people or many of the circumstances of our lives. So how do we show up to this life of ours with goals and hopes, but without sinking into the need to control and perfectionism? The answer is in learning how to embrace the uncertainty, the imperfection of life.
The worst thing that can happen is that you'll experience an emotion. That's it. Disappointment, rejection, sadness, fear, loss.
This is the human experience, my friends. Perfectly imperfect. We can both strive to achieve incredible things and we can weather the pain of loss and disappointment, and it's all exactly as it's meant to be.
In my coaching program, Mom 2.0, I teach how to bridge from perfectionism to embracing the beauty and perfection of life, exactly as it is.
Until next time, friends.
If you enjoyed this podcast, please leave a review and check out our coaching program, Mom 2.0 at www.thesmalljar.com. You have more power than you think, my friend.
