Melissa Eugene
Staff Writer
For a period of my life, I was a perfectionist, I had the “perfect” morning routine, the “perfect” night routine, I had scheduled screen time breaks. I had the “perfect” gym routine. My everyday routine from the moment I opened my eyes to the moment I closed them was “perfect.” And for a little while it felt good. There were times when I didn’t want to do those things, but I reminded myself that doing these things were for the greater good. Doing these things will lead me to a better life and abundance until it didn’t.
Before I share my side of the story on how being a perfectionist didn’t lead me to happiness, I first want to say even though I experienced unhappiness for a while when I was doing these things, they still have meaning towards a better life. While I was doing everything in the book to better my life, I still felt unhappy. I didn’t feel closer to my goal and that was because while doing these things I didn’t have the right intentions. I wasn’t doing my “perfect” morning routine because I wanted better for myself, and I knew I deserved to feed my mind the right words of affirmations before I picked up my phone. I was doing my morning routine to get a certain outcome; I was doing it to attract a certain thing. I wasn’t doing my perfect gym routine because I knew it was a gift to move my body to improve muscle tone, to have stronger bones, so I won’t have to walk with a cane by the time I turn 50. I wasn’t doing it to improve my sleep or my mood. I was doing it to have a more attractive body, not for me but for others.
Likewise, I wasn’t taking schedule screen time breaks to improve my mental focus or to do something creative with my time. I was doing it because at the time being on my phone while a certain someone neglected to text me back for hours and even days brought me anxiety and sadness to the point where I avoided my phone. So, it isn’t about what you’re doing sometimes, it’s mostly about why you’re doing it and how you feel after you do that thing.
Reading the book Meditations for Mortals by Oliver Burkman brought me this clarity and understanding, there are two paragraphs from the book that I want to focus on. “The greatest achievements often involve remaining open to serendipity, seizing unplanned opportunities, or riding an unexpected burst of motivation.” Reading that one paragraph gave me so much clarity to the things I was going through, and I will go more in detail shortly after pulling another quote from the book. “To be delighted by another person or moved by a landscape or a work of art requires not being in full control. At the same time, a good life clearly isn’t about giving up all hope of influencing reality.”
Looking back at the events in my life that I was proud of, and my greatest achievements didn’t come when I was doing those “perfect” routines. It came when I had the right intention that I deserve that event to happen in my life. My greatest achievements came from doing the things that I loved and trusting that if what I wanted didn’t happen that way I wanted to, then I’ll be okay. My greatest achievements came from me removing the burden of it not happening and knowing that I’ll be okay. So, I stopped. I was done being a perfectionist. I was done planning every little detail of my life to get a certain outcome. However, I still don’t look at my phone the first thing in the morning because I know that I first need to give myself words of affirmation to have a clear mentality for the rest of the day. I still go to the gym, however the kinds of exercises I do changed to me now doing exercises that make me feel good. The kind of exercises I do consist of the benefits that it will be given to me internally, not externally. And the great part about that is now that I focus on the internal aspect of an exercise, the external part naturally happens without me fixating on it. Moral of the story: I let go the need to control everything. I let go the need of getting a certain outcome. I put my intentions in the right place and life began to blossom.
caption: Photo courtesy of Dreamstime.com
