I’m a recovering perfectionist!

I confess……..I used to be a control freak!! – I felt that I did everything really well and efficiently and that everything needed to be organised & controlled & in order at all times. I also believed that no one else could do it as well as I could, so rather than delegate I found it easier to just do it myself. I couldn’t even contemplate what would happen if things were not done the way I wanted them done, and would get irritable and upset if they weren’t. I’m not talking swimming the channel or flying airplanes, I’m talking loading the dishwasher and cleaning the house!
Naturally this attitude extended to all the paid jobs I did as well. It wasn’t a coincidence that I had a long career as a TV Producer in the past – what better job to show off my ability to control, organise and ‘make things happen’!?

This way of being didn’t serve me terribly well in the long run, as it made me extremely hard to live with – a bit of a nag and inclined to be unable to relax and enjoy life unless ‘everything was tidy, in it’s right place and worthy of a magazine shoot!

At work, I would constantly beat myself up if I made the simplest of mistakes or was late for a meeting or I thought I’d said or done something ‘stupid’. I thought that unless everything I did & said was completely perfect, then that meant that I would be exposed as a fraud, that people would judge me, may laugh at my ineptitude or worse….

Naturally this way of being wasn’t sustainable and meant I wasn’t the easiest of people to live or work with. No husband or partner likes to be treated like your PA!  But most importantly of all, it wasn’t working for me – I got more and more exhausted, anxious and guilty as I knew I was being a nag, fussing about things that I knew weren’t ultimately important, but I just couldn’t seem to stop it. I remember feeling like I was stuck on some kind of turntable, destined to just keep trying to do things better but never being able to sustain any changes.

Just like many of the women I now work with, I actually became ill from this deep need for everything to be under my control – perfect! Also it was exhausting to be constantly beating myself up for ‘failing’ to change the way that I was handling things. Having my first baby was what finally bought things to a head and the added pressure of needing to be the best working Mum in the world!

Homeopathic treatment helped me enormously and I would say I was able to let go and manage that need for perfection by about 75%! Obviously this was life changing, however it wasn’t until much later during a QTT personal development session, that I realised that I was still feeling ‘bad’ about myself if I ever felt the need to organise others or have something be as good as it could be. It felt wrong for me to slip back into that ‘old’ behavior and I felt guilty for it – how could I or anyone be expected to live up to my very high standards? 

Thankfully due to the skill of the QTT practitioner I was working with, I came to recognise that whilst it was indeed damaging to me and others when I was in that perfectionist mode all the time, it had given me some very useful skills. It’s OK to bring those skills out if they are needed and use them in situations that require them. With the help of QTT methods I’ve been able to achieve 6 things:-

1. Totally let go of some areas where I recognised I still needed – rather than preferred – things to be carried out MY way. (There’s a subtle but important difference here).
2. Changed my feelings of self-loathing & guilt to one of pride that I am able to call upon an aspect of myself that is extremely efficient & organised and gets things done. This recognition of the positive aspects of what skills I have and the ability to harness them if & when required has been key for me.
3. I can now enjoy unexpected visitors – or planned visitors – without feeling like I have to have the house neat as a pin and a Home baked cake in the oven! I can also work much more efficiently as I don’t procrastinate because the clinic isn’t as tidy as it should be or the house washing up hasn’t been done.
4. I actually feel quite proud of and happy about my accomplishments and the different abilities I can call upon when I need them.
5. I am able to start things and get on with them much more readily as I don’t need them to be perfect anymore. It’s good to be ‘human’ and fallible and be able to laugh about it!
6. I recognise that we all do things differently and the world is not going to end if the laundry isn’t done the way I do it! It’s more important that it’s been done. So I can ask for help and accept it much more readily now.

These shifts in our perspectives and understanding of ourselves and others can make an enormous difference to how we feel and how we handle any situation. It’s so much easier to accept aspects or mini-personalities within ourselves and those we love when we recognise the need for them to be present because they serve a valuable purpose for a short time. We actually have lots of ‘mini-miens’ or personalities and they are almost always helping us in some way, as long as they serve us and we are not serving them, that’s OK!

I call my recovering Perfectionist mini self Mrs Producer and while I don’t want her around all the time, I am happier and happier to see her because Boy oh boy does she get things done!

If you are struggling with aspects of yourself that you don’t understand, don’t want or are making you uncomfortable or stuck in any way – I can help you – with QTT techniques – to get clarity, alter, change or release those that may not be helping you anymore and feel more in control & in balance rather than at the mercy of behaviors that you then feel bad about.

If you are interested in knowing more just fill out one of the sign-up forms at the bottom of each page on this website and we can have a chat about how I can help you be as 100% You as possible!