I’m not perfect...
But for a long time, I thought I needed to be. Developing Brave Musician has been about so much more than music for me. In fact, it’s been about being a Brave human and facing some of the fears, misconceptions, socializations, biases and beliefs that I have held onto for a long time, but that never really served me. Facing those things has had the benefit of making me a better human and a better musician. One of the biggest of them was perfectionism.
Perfectionism surfaced in my life in a number of different ways. I grew up in an environment where if I came home with a 98%, I was asked why it wasn’t 100%. There was an immense amount of pressure to be perfect and it seemed that nothing I ever did was good enough. So I strived to be perfect - perfect daughter, perfect student who earned perfect grades and the perfect musician. But in some ways I know that was fuel that kept my competitive fires going - it was just too extreme. I graduated 5th in my high school, only because I chose to take music classes instead of AP classes and that lowered my final GPA. It’s kind of ironic that I ended up choosing a profession where perfection is virtually impossible… maybe somewhere deep inside, I knew that perfection wasn’t going to work for me and I created a way out.
For me, perfection was an internal struggle. I didn’t expect anyone else to be perfect. I didn’t judge others harshly, only myself. But when I ran into someone (band leader, teacher, colleague, friend, whatever role they might play) who demanded perfection from those around them, I was really in trouble because it fed into my own need to be perfect in really unhealthy ways. I felt like I had something to prove to be worthy. I felt that my value as a person was being questioned. I felt that if “I could only do ____________” then I would be accepted. I looked to external validation of “perfect” to create the internal validation and it backfired time and time again. No matter what I did, it was never perfect enough for me to feel like I deserved it. I was wrong.
What I learned is that perfection kills joy and that joy is far more important than perfection. That’s not to say that you shouldn’t work hard or that you shouldn’t do something at a high level. That’s important. But be careful of the sacrifices that you make striving for perfection.
What I have also learned is that the desire or need to be perfect (or viewed as perfect) leads to shame, which rarely leads to growth or change.
Perfection is an illusion, a story, and it takes us out of the moment,
steals our curiosity, and disconnects us from those around us.
It takes so much energy to try to be perfect - energy that could be spent on other things.
There are people in the world that love the challenge of striving for perfection. I’m not here to tell you it’s wrong. But I can absolutely say that it didn’t work for me. If you find that perfection isn’t working for you either, I give you permission to let it go and find another way.