Great Expectations and How to Manage Them

    Coming to terms with imperfection is a difficult task that often seems impossible. Thanks to the internet, social media, and celebrity culture, we live in a world where success, high achievement and perfection surround our daily lives in a way unparalleled in all of human history. Growing up, we are supposed to learn about ourselves and how to grow into a more mature being, but how can we do that when we are surrounded by unattainable standards and are constantly blaming ourselves for not living up to them? 

    Ever since early childhood, I was always ahead of the curve in everything I did. I was top of my class in school, consistently excelled in dance exams and competitions (allowing me to be the youngest founding member of my dance studio’s pre-professional dance company), and quickly became one of the fastest swimmers in my swim team even though I never swam full time. I had college-level reading and writing by fifth grade, according to national standardized tests. My entire life I was constantly reminded of my potential for achievement: what I had done in the past and what I could do in the future so long as I kept working hard. I was a “gifted child” and I had no idea what to do with it. 

    Life is a series of choices, and the opportunities missed will always be greater than the ones taken. The problem is, I always wanted to take every opportunity. I never focused on one thing at a time; I’ve always pursued multiple interests and never fully committed to one thing. That was fine for most of my life. Elementary was easy. Middle school was harder, but I decided to stop swimming and focus on ballet, and I went through those three years without anything lower than an A-. Then high school hit. Everything got harder, my mental health began to shake, and my body began to change. I kept hitting walls with ballet, unable to get more flexible or move in the way I had to. My grades started to fall as the standards for my performance in every aspect of my life grew with no sign of stopping. 

    I kept wondering where I went wrong. I felt like I wasn’t living up to my past self; that I was letting the whole world down. I held such a high standard for myself and, when I couldn’t meet it, all I could see was the gap between me and perfection: that gap was what I perceived as failure. As my mental health deteriorated, I started to see I had completely lost focus on what matters in life and that I was beating myself up over things I could never control. I changed my life in my junior year. I decided to stop ballet at my studio and instead dance through my school and start swimming again. Overall, that gave me more time to focus on academics, less pressure for perfection in my extracurriculars, and a chance to better take care of my mental health. The difference came slowly, but it showed. 

The summer before my senior year, I went on a 26-day backpacking trip for my school (I went to a private school and we had some unique traditions), and halfway through I sprained my ankle. I almost went home, but I figured out how to tape my ankle in such a way as to support two more weeks of walking on it. I had to adjust: I couldn’t carry as much weight and, once we arrived at our campsites each night, I couldn’t help the way I had before. A year before I would’ve held these setbacks against myself but, instead, I remembered that my best will always look different depending on the day. I quickly found which chores I could do that would allow me to rest my ankle, and by the end of the trip some of my group mates had forgotten I was injured - not because they did not care, but because I learned how to get around it.

    Finding this mental acceptance is difficult, so hopefully some of the following suggestions can help:

• Tell yourself why you value a task before going into it and remind yourself the reasons it matters to you. We tend to ask ourselves why we don’t care “enough,” because we always compare ourselves to those who care the most. Yet we do care about what we are doing: don’t lose sight of that.
• In the face of errors, ask for advice not just on where you went wrong, but also what you did right, and remind yourself of those good things you’ve done. 
• Once you make a mistake and realize why, think for a moment if it is worth going back to fix it: if you’re a perfectionist you probably instinctively want to fix everything, but you might realize it’s simply not worth it. In general, “doing your best” is not a healthy mindset either. 
• Your best changes from day to day, and it is simply irrational to believe that you can function at peak capacity in all you do, all the time. Instead, just aim for good, or when you really want to push yourself, aim for excellence. 

    I am a critical perfectionist by nature, so none of what I recommend comes easily to me. It’s alright to struggle, it’s alright to make mistakes, and it’s alright to mess up where in the past you’ve succeeded. We are constantly bombarded with standards that are far beyond our reach, not because we are not capable of greatness but because sometimes, we just want to live. So, do good, and live your life. 

-Chandler / Ina

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cHANDLER/INA