Project 31 Day 12: Write about what wears you out as a woman.

The idea that I have to be perfect at everything exhausts me. How in the world did I get that idea so embedded in my thoughts?

No one ever expected perfection of me. As a child, I was allowed to make mistakes, learn from them and move on. I was allowed to get dirty, work and play hard, and was delighted in for who I was, not just for what I looked like or what I accomplished. And yet, somewhere along the way, I adopted this idea that to be ok, to be approved of or successful or a real woman, I've got to be perfect at everything. All the time.

Being a perfectionist is exhausting. There's the physical exhaustion from all the time and energy spent on perfecting things, and then there's the mental exhaustion that comes from beating myself up about the fact that I am never able to make things perfect anyway (surprised? I think not). It's a deadly cycle: it kills my joy.

In the past few months, I actually have loosened up a bit, realizing that perfectionism gets me nowhere, and that really, since nothing is ever perfect, the idea that it could be is just a lie. Even though I've accepted that I'm not perfect (nor will I ever be), I still seem to beat myself up when things I've done, or the way that I look, or what I've said, just aren't good enough. The energy I give to thinking about all of this wears me out.