I was recently wondering whether I should cut down on the amount of TV that I watch. Over the summer months I often will become engrossed with television and spend countless hours channel surfing. Sometimes I can become so entranced that I feel almost like I cannot stop watching. So I started considering whether I should just quit watching television altogether. When I mentioned this to a mentor, he quickly started trying to investigate my motives. He suspected that perfectionism was the root cause of my desire to quit.
I can't blame him for his conclusion. When probing for the reasons behind why I want to stop completely, all I could muster up were appeals to what is "normal" and feeling like I had to stop. Many of the motivations behind wanting to stop were a grand delusion that once I stopped watching TV, that I would soon morph into a perfect Christian. I would be caring, compassionate, and interested in the lives of others. And I would like myself.
That final bit is what leads me to think he was right, in part. When I think about it, the fact that I do not like myself now says much about how I will feel about myself if I actually change my behavior. It seems pretty likely that I won't really like myself entirely if I did stop watching TV. I cannot accept where I am today, even though I have tried really hard to get where I am. So maybe my insecurity is deeper than a remote control.
One thing I need to understand is that no matter how disciplined I am, if I cannot accept imperfection, I won't be happy. The spiritual disciplines can soothe my insecurities for a little while, but unless I hare real soul change then my life will not be any more satisfying - nor more loving. So I must pray for God to turn me into a person who accepts his grace and lets that gift, rather than my own perfectionism, drive my obedience to his will.
Showing posts with label perfectionism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label perfectionism. Show all posts
Wednesday, July 18, 2007
Monday, December 18, 2006
The Perfectionist
Over the last few days I have been reflecting on the fact that I can have a tendency to be a perfectionist in quite a few areas. I try to get A's in all my classes. I hate doing anything half hearted. I'm just an "all out" kind of guy. Of course, in many areas I am far off from perfection and how I deal with those areas is actually kind of interesting. I can sometimes devalue that part of my life (it's not that big of a deal to keep your room clean) or pretend like it's impossible to get any better with that (acting like it's impossible for me to remember names any better). Now perfectionism is useful in driving us to perform well but it can become a problem when life becomes unbalanced or when we are crippled by the perfectionism in some way.
Now I had been thinking that I would like to be more helpful around the house. But the problem was I had only been thinking about it. I started to think about committing to a drastic change but something was holding me back. At first I didn't have a clue what was wrong. I wanted to be a nicer, more caring person but I didn't want to commit to it. The problem was, as a perfectionist, I was afraid that I was going to fail. If I committed to change then I would be raising the bar for my own standards of how I should act.
My perfectionism couldn't handle this. I could deal with being disappointed with my behavior from time to time. But raising the standard would likely mean that I would fail more, at least at first. So deep down I resisted the change because I was afraid to fail. Once someone pointed this out to me everything suddenly clicked. I realized that I couldn't accept that I am a work in progress. I should applaud myself for wanting to change and not be deterred by initial setbacks. I was glad because once this perfectionism was brought to the light, the truth suddenly made it seem silly.
Perhaps my case is not unique. Could there be ways in which you resist change simply because you fear failure? Maybe you tried before and failed. No matter how many times we fail, it is always important to try to live up to a greater standard. Sometimes we simply need to remind ourselves that our goals are worth the pain of a few setbacks.
Now I had been thinking that I would like to be more helpful around the house. But the problem was I had only been thinking about it. I started to think about committing to a drastic change but something was holding me back. At first I didn't have a clue what was wrong. I wanted to be a nicer, more caring person but I didn't want to commit to it. The problem was, as a perfectionist, I was afraid that I was going to fail. If I committed to change then I would be raising the bar for my own standards of how I should act.
My perfectionism couldn't handle this. I could deal with being disappointed with my behavior from time to time. But raising the standard would likely mean that I would fail more, at least at first. So deep down I resisted the change because I was afraid to fail. Once someone pointed this out to me everything suddenly clicked. I realized that I couldn't accept that I am a work in progress. I should applaud myself for wanting to change and not be deterred by initial setbacks. I was glad because once this perfectionism was brought to the light, the truth suddenly made it seem silly.
Perhaps my case is not unique. Could there be ways in which you resist change simply because you fear failure? Maybe you tried before and failed. No matter how many times we fail, it is always important to try to live up to a greater standard. Sometimes we simply need to remind ourselves that our goals are worth the pain of a few setbacks.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)