The Curse of Being a Perfectionist or How I stopped Caring About Performance?

It all started when I learned to read. I was three. My mom told me, once I grew up, how a miracle-like event it was to witness me turning pages of a children’s book reading the exact lines correctly. The next step was kindergarten. There, just like perhaps everywhere, we were given some simple tasks such as “count the apples on a tree” or “colour the balloon that has the most stars on it”. The joy that I felt when being the first to return the papers to the teacher, the pride of walking back to my table followed by the amazed and cheerful comments gave it all a start. They kick-started the irreversible process of the birth of a little yet super committed perfectionist within my young mind. Years passed, the school had started. I can still remember that cloudy June morning with the sun desperately trying to make its way through the thick layer of rain clouds in the skies. I can still remember standing there in the line in the biggest classroom of our school together with my classmates. I can still remember the teacher reading the names of those who got awarded diplomas for succeeding well in their school career. It was the last day of the first grade and all my classmates’ faces were shining diamond bright as each and everyone was waiting for the summer holiday to start. Everyone except me. My face must have had a Grinch-like expression on as by a simple accident my name was the last to be mentioned. Those five minutes felt like an eternity for me. I was crying. Every person in the room had suddenly turned towards me and stared at my face that was now red from tears and oblique from grief. The moment I got my diploma I no longer cared. The problem was: I WAS THE LAST. Now you may wonder, WHY ON EARTH do I remember this event so vividly and clearly even though it’s been YEARS since it had happened. Well, let me explain: The reaction that I got that day was now a stable reaction of mine every time and in every situation that included ANY sort of competition, was it now being put in the order of the best performance, school awards, exams and so on. It became the never-ending cycle that continued from year to year all the way to the 9th grade. The last year of middle school. That year I barely did anything but study. I spent HOURS every single day in my room reading textbooks, completing tasks, and doing some extra work that I asked the teachers to give me. My ultimate goal at that time was to get accepted to a high school of my dreams, more precisely, to be accepted to the IB Diploma Program, which here in Finland requires passing an entrance examination to prove your competence. At the time, every single day of my life was structured hour by hour so that I would be able to keep track of what I had already done and what I still had to do. And no, I do not mean keeping track of how much time I spend on my hobbies, the time that I spend with my family and the time that I used to study. No. I kept track of how much extra schoolwork have I done already and how much I still have to do, plus what, and how much I have to study for the entrance exam. I was exhausted. Yet, I did not want to acknowledge that myself. My family kept telling me that the work that I do is more than enough and that I should have a break from it. But I did not believe them. I assumed that all the work that I’m doing is definitely not enough and that I should certainly do much more in order to prove myself worthy. That year I was at my lowest. I lost several kilos of weight, I got easily irritated, I cried a lot. Looking back, I get chills every time I recall those moments. However, there were many amazing moments too, one of which happens to be the graduation ceremony. This time, instead of crying I stood proudly on the stage receiving all the possible diplomas, awards, certificates and gifts our school had prepared for the students who did well. I was one of them. Furthermore, I was the one and only student in the whole city, who got a full 9,99 mark on their diploma. I was shining from within. I finally felt like all the work I did wasn’t for nothing. I was finally happy with myself. I got even happier when I finally received the news that I was amongst those who got accepted to the Diploma Programme. Me, and 29 other students from the whole region of Eastern Finland. The summer of 2018 went by and the high school finally started in August. Immediately after the first weeks of school, I could feel the growing pressure of the school subjects that gradually got even more and more difficult. The first year went by. Few students who were initially in our class dropped out. And so did some of the students on another campus. At the beginning of the second year, other few dropped. And some more. There were various reasons why the people decided to drop out starting from just being unable to cope with all the schoolwork to just getting emotional burnouts and thus deciding to leave. But I stayed. In September 2019, my dad passed away and at that exact moment, my life just turned around. At that exact moment, I came to a realisation. My mindset went through a whole range of emotions starting with grief, anger, fear, and finally, acceptance. I came to realize how short and unpredictable our life is. Literally, anything can happen ANY moment. There are things out there that we, as little human beings have no power over. There are things that we cannot predict or influence in any way. We are mortal. Only then, I understood that we should enjoy every single day that we are given on this earth. I understood that we must cherish every moment and every memory as these are the things that make up our lives. From then on, I promised myself that whenever it comes to picking between proving myself good enough and worthy and spending time with my family and friends, making memories, I’d pick the latter. As soon as I woke up from that constant cycle of trying to be perfect, life became so much better. I noticed that I was not the only one with the so-called “perfectionist syndrome”. I began seeing other people who had adopted the same attitude and realizing that once I was one of them. Now I just couldn’t believe, how miserable I was back in the day. I couldn’t believe that once, I was one of those people who’d drive themselves to the edge of emotional and physical exhaustion getting only momentarily feeling of accomplishment in return. One of those people who would never feel enough. The moral of this story is simple. Much simpler than you may expect. Just live. Live your life to the fullest. As cliche as this may sound, the idea stays the same. Make memories, spend time with your loved ones, do what you like and enjoy. Remember, that proving yourself worthy is something that matters only to you and nobody else but you. Other people value YOU for your character, for your smile, for your voice, they value YOU for being YOU. You are enough.