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Lent 2021: Letting Go of Perfection

These journalling prompts come from Rachel Macy Stafford's Soul Shift Lift course, which I'm finding really valuable right now as I'm looking to use this Lent to deepen all my relationships: with God, but also with my children in particular.


Do you find yourself obsessing over doing things perfectly? 

I'm not sure perfection is the right word for the problem, although I struggle to come up with another. I really don't think of myself as a perfectionist - one look at my house will assure you I'm not, and my husband is much better at putting things away, making things orderly and so on: I think of myself as the sloppy one.

But for the first time, after listening to Rachel's talk, I connected perfectionism to something I do. She described being so anxious, worried and annoyed at leaving home for a holiday because she had so many things in her mind - inconsequential things like the dishwasher wasn't empty, they were a bit late on the road... and I definitely do that. I hate being late, and when we get delayed I do get very anxious and I start snapping at people. I hurry my kids along. I get annoyed. It's very hard to snap out of that and be present in a moment that I don't want to be in - I want to be relaxed, but being late does not make me feel relaxed.

I guess there are two points to take from this. Firstly, is asking myself: how bad is it to be late for this? Letting a friend wait for five minutes is not as terrible as missing an appointment and being turned away for being late, for example. I don't like to let anybody wait, but a friend will be okay with it (to a degree). 

Secondly, learn how to be ready for things within good time. I read somewhere that Barack Obama was always the first in a meeting, always at least 20 minutes early anywhere, because that gave him the advantage of owning the room as he greeted those arriving as well as giving him time to be composed and present. Somehow I always cut it fine - I hate being late, but I also never try to arrive early. That is silly, it's a setup for stress! So, my resolution for this is to always aim to be 10-20 minutes early, and then if there's a bit of a delay there won't be the stress and anxiety that I put on my children so unfairly.

Do you have trouble meeting your own standards? Do your loved ones meet your standards? What are the costs of these standards? 

My standards are generally low, haha! No, that's not true actually. The other week we discussed where our self worth comes from, and I said mine is usually efficiency and competence. So my standards of efficiency and competence, when infringed, do cause me to get annoyed or anxious. I can't think of examples at the moment except the lateness issue, because Mr. tends to be so much more relaxed about being late than I am - often, I am ready and I have the kids ready and he still calmly gets this and that, checks things, generally carries on without a care in the world - as if we had all the time in the world. This does anger me.

Partly the problem, I think, is mental load. I generally carry the mental load, the responsibility for all the little things. Like Rachel, who was angry about the dishwasher not being empty as they went on holiday: that is a typical mental load thing that men just don't seem to take on. I have everything in my head when we go out: what clothes / shoes the kids need, what snacks need packing, what do we leave behind, where are we going, what will we do there and who will we meet, etc. etc. it is a huge, exhaustive list. Whereas Mr. just picks up what he needs and gets in the car when he's good and ready. I can't make him carry mental load, it just naturally falls to me (and to be fair, I don't get involved in his mental load that he carries for his work as well as any building/DIY work in the house), but better preparation and possibly communication could help. 

Choose one standard that you could lower. Would it still be ok?

As I said above, I could try and become a bit more at ease about being late - or actually aim to be early instead. Either would lower the anxiety / annoyance moments we tend to deal with when leaving the house!
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