Giving up on Perfectionism

In this blog post, I would like to share about my decision of giving up on my perfectionism habit.

I remember myself proving myself, raising my expectation ladder each time I achieve something and always being not happy with the results because to me it used to be not good enough or never up to the standard.

Until the aha moment when I woke up from my mental and emotional sleep and realized: What am I doing to myself? Does this make any sense?

My health got affected in that moment of time. My sleep, my routines and almost everything in my life were affected. The only thing I saw that needed immediate attention is my health and wellbeing.

After so much mental and emotional processing, I recognized: I am a human being. I am not perfect. I never will be. I can never meet others’ expectations. We all are different. We can never be the same. If we think we are the same, we are fooling ourselves.

What brings us together is our humanity, our individual experiences and our worship to Allah.

Today I lead a better, worth it and balanced lifestyle. I don’t focus only on my work to make it perfect or super. I give my best effort in a balanced way remembering my different roles.

I am not only a lecturer in a university. I am also a wife, a mother, a daughter, a sister, a contributor, a blogger, an author and a speaker.

I show up my best effort in all those roles without hooking myself to perfectionism. I just tell myself: Did I interact with that student in genuine way? Did I go down to his level and perspective? Did I give space and attention when chatting with my husband? Did I create a room for stories and meaningful conversations with my kids? Did I workout, eat healthy and take care of myself? If the answer was yes, then I did well and I am happy with how that day turned.