Unlearning Perfectionism: Learning to be Imperfectly Perfect

For a long time, my goal was to be perfect. I wanted everything to look, sound, and feel right. Being perfect meant being in control. Somewhere along the way, I realized all that control was controlling me.

Perfectionism has this tricky way of disguising itself as motivation. It tells you it’s helping. It’s pushing you to do your best and that 's the reason you care so much. It’s an endless chase with no finish line, and I spent a lot of time running in circles trying to earn a sense of peace that perfectionism would never actually let me have.

In college, I strived to be the perfect student. I needed flawless grades, great ideas, and to be the most involved student on campus. I thought that if I could be impressive enough, maybe I’d finally feel worthy. Somewhere between the color-coded notes and the late-night study sessions, I lost the joy of learning. I became more focused on being perfect than on actually being present. Eventually, I fell behind. The more I tried to catch up, the more paralyzed I felt. Every paper I turned in didn’t feel good enough. Every grade that wasn’t an A felt like failure. I wasn’t just afraid of being wrong–I was afraid of being seen as human.

Some of my perfectionism, I’ve realized, ties into my OCD. There’s a comfort in order, in control, in the illusion that if I do everything “right,” I’ll be safe. Perfectionism is a cage. It keeps you anxious, busy, and far from yourself. These days, I’ve learned that one of the most powerful things I can do is simply notice it. Just calling it out and catching myself in those moments of overthinking can be enough to snap me back to reality. That small acknowledgment breaks the spell. It doesn’t erase the impulse, but it reminds me that I have a choice in how I respond to it.

Last winter, I took a pottery class that completely reshaped how I think about perfection. Pottery is not kind to perfectionists. You can’t control clay the way you want to. Add too much water, and it collapses. Overwork it, and it dries out or breaks. Pull one too many times, and your whole piece will cave in. At first, it drove me crazy. I wanted everything to come out smooth and symmetrical, just like the pieces I saw on Pinterest. But over time, I realized that clay doesn’t care about your expectations. You have to meet it where it’s at. Sometimes that means letting go, sometimes it means starting over, and sometimes it means accepting a little wobble as part of the story.

I started to see a parallel between pottery and life. You can strive for perfection, sure, but the more you try to control the outcome, the more you lose the joy of creation. There’s beauty in imperfection and uneven edges that make something yours. I began to understand that perfection isn’t always about doing your best work, it’s about learning to stop before you ruin something by overworking it. I call this urge my “too much gene”. 

That same lesson showed up again when I worked at camp. I wanted everything to run flawlessly. I wanted the kids to have fun, the activities to go smoothly, and every day to feel like the best day ever. Camp has a funny way of humbling you. Paint spills. Fires won’t start. Campouts get canceled because of the rain. Every time something didn't go according to plan, I would feel like a failure. I would be so hard on myself for not preparing better or having a backup plan. 

I found it frequently in these moments though, that when I’d look around, I'd see the kids laughing, problem-solving, making the best of it. I started to realize that the messy moments were the ones they remembered most.

Some of the best days at camp were the unplanned ones. The first campout of the season was interrupted with an intense thunderstorm. Our protocol in this situation is to put the kids in the van to get them out of the elements. While sitting in the van trying to figure out the next steps, the kids turned the van into a party bus. They passed out glow sticks and took turns queuing up songs. They sang and danced for a while until the storm blew over. 

Unlearning perfectionism isn’t like flipping a switch. It’s more like slowly loosening your grip. It’s catching yourself in the moment and saying, “I’m doing enough.” It’s forgiving yourself when you make a mistake. It’s learning to show up anyway, even when things don’t go exactly how you imagined. For me, it’s been about redefining what “perfect” even means. I used to think it meant flawlessness. Now I think it means alignment. Being kind to myself, making choices that honor who I am, and doing things for future me all made me feel like the most perfect version of myself.

Perfectionism still tries to sneak in. Sometimes it shows up as pressure to do it all and other times it hides under the disguise of productivity or self-improvement, whispering, “You could be doing more.” Learning to quiet that voice doesn’t mean I’ve stopped caring. It just means I’ve started caring differently. I care about peace more than performance now. I care about connection more than control.

The more I’ve let go of perfectionism, the more room I’ve found for authenticity. I write with more honesty. I connect with people more deeply. I laugh at my mistakes instead of hiding them. And ironically, I end up doing better work. There’s this beautiful kind of peace that comes from realizing you don’t have to have everything together. You can mess up, start over, and be unsure. And guess what? Life goes on.

Perfectionism wants us to believe that control equals success. Real freedom isn’t found in control. It’s found in being brave enough to show up as yourself, even when you’re a little messy, even when things don’t go according to plan. Once you stop trying to be perfect, you start to notice all the small, imperfect moments that make life beautiful like the slightly tilted mug, the unplanned detour, the conversation that didn’t go how you rehearsed it in your head but somehow said exactly what it needed to.

These days, I still strive to be the best version of myself, just not the flawless version. I try to be the kindest version. The one who gives myself grace. The one who forgives easily and speaks gently to myself when I’m learning. Perfection used to mean never making mistakes. Now it means showing up for myself even when I do.

Unlearning perfectionism hasn’t been easy but it’s been worth it. I’ve stopped trying to fix myself and started learning how to live with myself, how to trust myself, how to just be. The truth is, perfection isn’t the path to peace. Acceptance is. And the moment you stop chasing an impossible standard, you create space for something so much better: freedom.