I Love To... The Disagreement Between Passion And Perfectionism

If you read last week's blog you'll remember that perfectionism takes a lot from you. All three points were in regards to passion.

For me, I've always been a passionate person. I love deeply and fully. I feel things deeper. I have bigger and "unrealistic" dreams and desires.

But perfectionism and people-pleasing have worked hard to stifle those beautiful parts of myself.

In my life, I have often jumped from passion to passion and charged ahead with something new full force. I have always felt guilty about this but recently have changed the narrative on it and made it a strength of mine.

Loving life too much is just not an issue.

But for many perfectionists or extremely high achievers, maybe like you, passion is a trait that perfectionism does not want. Perfectionism feels threatened by the very existence of passion.

Many perfectionists think that their perfectionist traits are a part of passion but they don't often realize that those are toxic traits. Passion is pure and exciting. Perfectionism is life-sucking and consuming.

When you are passionate about something it won't feel hard to do, it won't feel like you "have to do it." It'll make you jump out of bed and even if you do your passion for a job, you'll probably want to do it in your free time too.

For instance, my passion is writing - you can probably tell if you're an avid blog reader of mine. As a freelance VA and a wellness coach, I do a lot of writing. I write social media posts, blogs, podcasts, emails, etc. for my virtual assistant clients and I write social media posts, emails, blogs, etc. for my coaching business. But I also genuinely love to write. I'm currently taking an English Composition course in my free time, I keep various journals, I love handwriting everything, etc.

For me, it's not hard. It's not work. It never feels forced. I choose to do it. I could pick something else to do but I desire to be writing most of the time.

But perfectionism says you have to be doing this all the time.

Read 3 Things Perfectionism Has Taken From You

The 3 things listed in the previous blog were simply doing things because you enjoy them, being present in the small moments of life and feeling passionate about things with no pressure.

How do these relate to being passionate?

1. Simply doing things because you enjoy them

Passion has a lot to do with what you enjoy. That is the best part of feeling passionate about something is that you jump out of bed ready and wanting to do that thing so bad. Simply put, if you don't like it you're not passionate about it.

But doing something simply because you enjoy it is so much more. We often turn our passions into our careers and that's great. We all should do jobs that we enjoy, despite what the older generations and society tells us. But sometimes when we do that it becomes this thing that we have to do to make money.

Now some people can do both. For instance, I write a lot for work but I still take my notebook around and write all the time just to write and I'm currently working on writing a book. Sometimes it takes over your life and then you lose the enjoyment of it. That's what perfectionism does.

Perfectionism doesn't like that you're enjoying something because when you do something for the enjoyment of it you stop striving for it to be the best. If you're truly enjoying it then you're not worried about how good it is and perfectionism stops winning.

We want passion to win and perfectionism to lose. So keep trying to do things just for the fun of it.

2. Being present in the small moments of life

Your passions should help you be more present in life; they should help you live your life fuller. Life is meant to be lived and to love living it. I know, what a radical thing to say in modern society that is focused on productivity and work, work, work.

If you are passionate about photography then each time you see a beautiful moment that you want to take a photo of you are transported, just for a moment, to that world. If you're photographing a sunset you are fully tuned into that sunset. If you are passionate about drawing then each time you feel inspired by a subject or an idea and you begin creating the inspiration it helps you get out of your own head and simply be filled with love and concentration.

Your passion can also be hiking and when you hike and reach the top of the mountain and see the absolutely gorgeous view at the top you have your breath taken away. You might think to yourself "this is the most beautiful view, I feel so grateful to get to see it."

That is passion.

Perfectionism would turn those beautiful moments into self-criticism. Perfectionism would agonize over taking the perfect picture, perfectionism would nitpick everything that is wrong with your drawing and perfectionism would be self-critical about your hiking performance.

3. Feeling passionate about things with no pressure

This one is the most obvious about passion. Perfectionism and passion do not get along. As long as, passion is present it makes the ground perfectionism stands on unstable and makes its whole existence uncertain.

In order to lull you into a false sense of security, perfectionism will make you think you're feeling passion but you can always tell the difference based on how you feel. If it's perfectionism then you'll feel stressed and there will be pressure. If it's passion then you'll feel joy and excitement and desire.

Do what you love, love what you do. I used to hashtag that all the time. I was trying so hard to convince myself that what I was doing what a passion of mine. But instead, it was perfectionism. It was time-consuming, not because I loved doing it but because perfectionism told me that if I wasn't overworking then I was valuable or worthy.

I had to put in so many hours in order to produce a perfect product.

I'm sure you may feel the same way. It's easy to mix the two up because perfectionism has a huge hold on our brains.

But start becoming aware of when your perfectionism is arising and trying to ruin the moment. When it does tell it it's not welcome and then work hard to enjoy whatever it is you're doing. Make it fun. Learn to love it again.

Need some tips on creating your new identity and habits and kicking perfectionism to the curb? To get organized so these don't become overwhelming grab a FREE copy of my How To Create Your Own Wellness Plan resource to figure it out what and how to create a wellness plan that is free from the controlling grasp of perfectionism and builds self-love that is not based on how well you perform.