The Perfectionist's Guide to Losing Control: A Path to Peace and Power

by Katherine Morgan Schafler

Perfectionists are not balanced people, and that’s okay. Subscribing to prepackaged notions of balance and generic wellness when they don’t fit who you are isn’t being healthy, it’s being obedient.

Perfectionism makes an excellent servant and a terrible master; let’s also be honest about that.

Perfectionists are intelligent people who understand that everything can’t work out perfectly all the time. What they sometimes have trouble with is understanding why they still feel so disappointed by imperfection in the face of that intellectual concession. What they sometimes wonder about is why they feel so compelled to endlessly strive. What they’re sometimes confused by is what they’re striving for in the first place. What they often question is why they can’t just enjoy relaxing “like a normal person.” What they want to know is who they are outside of what they accomplish.

Messy perfectionists believe that they can do it all without ever having to give anything up, that they can be the humans who figure out how to exist without limits. When it becomes apparent that they can’t, messy perfectionists are crushed. Like procrastinator perfectionists, messy perfectionists experience a type of loss associated with their perfectionism,

It’s quite stunning to see the shame-inducing, emotionally charged, highly pathologized language around which the wellness industry so casually frames the concept of perfectionism.

When you try to get rid of your perfectionism, all you’re doing is hemorrhaging energy at the opportunity cost of attending to your wellness.

Stop taking your perfectionism for granted. Not everyone gets to experience that impulse you carry, pushing you to explore the bounds of possibility for yourself and the world around you.

Perfectionists are bored by hedonism. Perfectionists love working. Perfectionists love a challenge. Perfectionists want to contribute, create, and grow.

You don’t heal by changing who you are; you heal by learning how to be yourself in the world.

For perfectionists, the risk of being underwhelmed is much scarier than the risk of being overwhelmed.

Feeling the tightening and seeking release is an everyday experience for perfectionists. Perfectionists live with a tension inside them that never goes away.

You don’t achieve liberation through control; you achieve liberation through acceptance.