Embrace imperfection!

It’s time to stop pursuing perfection, says a new book. What we should do instead is embrace the concept of ‘ish’

‘We need to care more about less. Focus on relationships and spending time with precious people’

SO OFTEN, the simple question of asking a friend or family member how they’re doing is met with the same response: busy. Living on hyper drive in an effort to keep everything together has become the new normal. But is it really worth it? Or are we just left feeling burnt out?

As a “reformed perfectionist”, Australian author Lynne Cazaly has been there. Her career experience as a board director and mentoring high-performing executives, as well as going through a few personal health scares, all contributed to a stark realisation: life is simply far too short for perfection.

In her new book, Ish*, she explores the problems with our pursuit of perfection and the life-changing practice of good enough. She draws on the work of researchers Thomas Curran and Andrew Hill, who define perfectionism as a combination of excessively high standards and overly critical self-evaluations.

In their study of more than 40 000 people from the late 1980s to 2016, Curran and Hill looked at the changes across three different dimensions of perfectionism.

The first is self-oriented perfectionism, characterised by unrealistic expectations of oneself, being highly self-critical and attaching irrational importance to being perfect.

The second is other-oriented perfectionism, where you evaluate others critically and hold them to unrealistic standards.

The third dimension, socially prescribed perfectionism, is where you believe you’re judged harshly in a social context and that you must display perfection for approval.

PERFECTION WASTES TIME

While all three dimensions increased over time, the rise of socially prescribed perfectionism was double that of the other two. “This is the one that’s the worry,” Cazaly says. It’s the most debilitating type of perfectionism in terms of neurotic and depressive symptoms over time, meaning it’s likely to be the most important in terms of explaining increases in mental-health issues, according to the study. From her years of working with individuals and businesses, Cazaly has seen perfectionism manifest in myriad ways,

even from the very beginning of the day when people are wondering what to wear. The phrase “it’s not good enough yet” is something she hears time and time again. “If you’re working on a report at work, or even setting the dinner table because some friends are coming over, when you keep on tinkering with something, thinking it’s not yet good enough, that’s a sure red flag you’re going for perfection. It doesn’t exist and you’ll never be finished,” she says.

THE EFFECT ON YOUR HEALTH

The increasingly individualistic, competitive nature of the world means rising standards and the pressure to achieve are both huge drivers of perfectionism, and although social media can be a tool for inspiration, it can also easily lead to people making unrealistic social comparisons.

There are many areas of life where precision and impeccably high standards are needed, something Cazaly is quick to emphasise – having an engineer, surgeon or pilot let their standards slip is the last thing we need, after all.

But for most aspects of everyday life, the drive for perfectionism is relentless, exhausting and can be deeply damaging. Operating from a mindset where nothing is ever good enough can waste time, make you tough to work and live with, and even have quite serious health repercussions. “Physically and emotionally, all of this extra work is creating things such as depression, anxiety, sleeplessness, migraines and asthma,” says Cazaly. “Being critical and beating yourself up is really not a good place to be.”

ACCEPTING ‘ISH’

It’s something Cazaly knows first-hand. “When I was reading all of this information, I thought, ‘Hang on, this was me!’” she says, recalling moments of being afraid to publish a website, send a newsletter or share photos. “I wasted a lot of time and energy trying to make things perfect before I shared them with the world.”

What she proposes in her new book is a little less perfection, and a whole lot more “ish” – a word that used to be just a suffix at the end of words but has recently taken on its own meaning. What time should we meet? Six-ish. How are you feeling today? Okay-ish.

Adopting “ish” is about relaxing our standards and being happy when things are good enough. It’s about flexibility and putting less effort into things that aren’t meaningful. “Give attention to the things that matter and ‘ish’ the rest,” Cazaly says.

Throughout her travels, she’s taken inspiration from how other parts of the world see things.

“Japanese culture for example, where we might think everything would be about precision, is actually really good with the idea of imperfection. They love the concept of wabi-sabi, which is about accepting the natural imperfection in everything.”

CHOOSE WHAT YOU CARE ABOUT

A common misconception is that embracing “ish” means embracing low standards. That’s not the case – it’s simply about caring about the right things.

“We spend too much time on things that don’t matter. I say we need to care more about less. Focus on things such as relationships, friendships and spending time with precious people. That’s important stuff. Maybe less time vacuuming or ironing your underwear.”

PERFECTLY IMPERFECT

Embracing “ish” means recognising the parts of life that don’t need to be perfect, and directing that time and energy into things that bring fulfilment.

It’s a practice that can free up time, lower stress, improve relationships and turn down the internal noise of constantly berating yourself.

We often think that in work and in life, the closer we get to being perfect, the more others will approve of us, but as Cazaly explains, the opposite holds true.

“It’s called the Pratfall effect. If you make an error, you show your authenticity, your vulnerability, and people actually perceive you more highly. That’s been a big one for me. We can all think of people in our lives who we know are imperfect, but we love them, so it’s the same for us.” *Ish by Lynne Cazaly is available from lynnecazaly.com © BAUERSYNDICATION.COM.AU/MAGAZINEFEATURES.CO.ZA