Toxic Perfectionism

I heard it said that "perfection is the enemy of excellence."  What this means is that we can get so focused on wanting to do things perfectly that we become paralyzed, not willing to take the first step out of fear of failure.  Excellence is often born out of failure and the things we learn from failing, then trying again.  Generally I am an "all or nothing" kind of person.  If I can't give something 100%, I don't even want to try, and if I try to give 100% and fall short, I focus on where I slipped up rather than celebrating the success I had.  Can anybody identify with this?

This is really a toxic form of perfectionism and it can absolutely paralyze us and keep us from even starting.  We look at all of the potential obstacles and unless we know ahead of time exactly how we're going to overcome each one, we give up because the fear of failure overwhelms us.

While I stayed on plan and stayed in the fat-burning state the entire 11 months it took me to lose 120 pounds, my path thus far in maintenance (4-1/2 years) has been less straightforward.  I've shared with you that, to quote a friend of mine, "maintenance isn't for sissies." :-)  For a recovering perfectionist like myself, doing maintenance less than 100% "right" could trigger a serious backslide - you know, the old "if I'm not going to be good then I might as well be really, really bad" mentality.  However, please note that I am now a RECOVERING perfectionist!

What this means is that I am learning that the most important thing is to keep moving forward.  When I fall down (notice I didn't say "if"), I no longer waste time beating myself up.  I try to figure out what happened, because I want to learn from my mistake, but then I just refocus on what I want and keep on going.  When I've found myself hovering dangerously close to the top of my goal range and my jeans get tight,  I've had to figure out what happened and then take steps to reign things in. 

For those of you who are still on your weight loss journey, I want to encourage you to do two things.  First of all, I really encourage you to stay on plan, because that is by far the fastest and surest way to reach your goal.  Secondly, if you do find that you've gotten off plan, don't waste any time beating yourself up - just pick yourself up and keep moving forward!  Do spend some time (but not TOO much!) and try to determine what happened and why, but then move on.  Even if you don't do this perfectly, as long as you don't allow missteps to keep you from moving forward, you'll reach your goal - one day, one meal, and one choice at a time . . . choose wisely :-)