Healing Space | Perfection is not productivity

Nothing that happens around us exists independently. This is what is known as interdependent arising. (Illustration by Suneesh K.)

Note to readers: Healing Space is a weekly series that helps you dive into your mental health and take charge of your wellbeing through practical DIY self-care methods.

We tend to look back on the year with some sense of accomplishment and some sense of regret, for the things we have achieved or not. Perfectionists have the hardest time letting go of what they perceive as their ‘failures’ because it feels so personal. You may have had goals and targets for the year that got pushed back or reduced for one reason or another. However, before you write your future goals down, you should consider whether you got in your own way. How? By being a perfectionist.

Contrary to what you might think, being a perfectionist is not always about getting the thing you need to get done, done right. It’s about control. Perfectionists want a pre-set outcome to be fulfilled. It could be to achieve a certain mark on an exam, a set value on a portfolio, tick off a to-do list, achieve a certain optimum weight, acquire specific things, like buying or selling a house, a certain car, take that vacation to the desired destination, find a life partner.

People set themselves goals both personal and professional and imagine that throwing their entire weight behind the pursuit of it is perfectionism. There’s a problem with that, though. In this process, they see themselves as the single cause of an outcome. ‘If I put in X effort, I will get Y result’.

However, nothing in the world arises independently. All phenomena are a product of causes and conditions. All events and circumstances arise at a crossroads of events and circumstances that intersect. You happen to meet the love of your life at a party you weren’t even invited to because a friend wanted company. You didn’t make the target value on your portfolio because the Ukraine war hit oil prices which impacted your investment in the energy sector.

Why go so far? You wanted to eat saag for dinner but the vegetable vendor near your home has run out because there is a landslide on the highway on the outskirts of Chandigarh that has disrupted the supply chain to your town. Nothing that happens around us exists independently. This is what is known as interdependent arising. So when you are not the single cause of anything, how can you control the outcome?

It’s more important to go one step further and ask why we attempt to control outcomes then. This is because what we control contributes to our sense of identity. A common way of functioning is 'I' as the doer take the credit for an achievement. However, when things don’t go our way, we do tend to see the factors that didn’t support the outcome. Perfectionists don’t do this. They attribute both the credit and the failure to the actions of the 'I'. So, there are no mitigating factors for not achieving a goal. If I achieve it, the credit is mine, if I don’t achieve it, the blame is mine. This complete ownership of accountability leads to a compulsive need to control all influencing factors.

What’s wrong with that, you may think. Well, firstly, it’s not possible to control all arising external phenomena, even if you manage to suppress some of them some of the time, it’s a temporary stay, things will eventually go out of your control or alter their nature. If you are growing a plant, even if you weed, water and give it sunlight, it may still be eaten by pests or worms and you can’t control every form of infection or aspect of soil quality the plant gets. If you do, you will end up with a genetically altered plant or a pesticide-ridden plant, and that is not the same thing.

Secondly, this attempt to control everything makes you rigid. The more you need things in line, the tighter a ship you must run. The attempt to keep things the same will exhaust you because you now need to control each moving part, which you cannot do. And tightness leaves no room for things developing organically. And flexibility is the true sign of psychological good health. To maintain flexibility, you must be able to see reality as it is, not as you wish it were. Reality consists of moving parts, many of which have a mind and trajectory of their own. Perfectionism lives in denial of this reality.

You have a far better chance of success when you are adaptable, dynamic and are moving with the flow of your life than when you are a perfectionist.