Your perfectionism is about fear.

Nobody’s perfect. While it’s true that we can have perfect moments – and we should strive for them, we must accept that we will never be “perfect” people. Even great people in history, sports, and science aren’t perfect.

That because no matter how hard we try, we are going to fail or disappoint at times. That’s just life. The best we can do is make those times as few as possible.

But you can overdo that attempt to minimize failure or disappointment. And that’s where the danger of perfectionism arises.

When perfectionism rules us, we’re not trying to be better. We’re just hyper-afraid of being wrong.

It’s a close cousin to paranoia. Our anxiety to be “perfect” drives us to spend lots of our energy and emotional state to control all outcomes. An attempt to quell fear through starving it of chances for failure. But the core issues remain. Fear is driving this process.

Like the saying, “Perfectionism is often fear masked with a good polish and spit shine.”

You cannot over control yourself from fear. You free yourself from fear when you accept all outcomes. You want to do your best to be perfect, but accept that you can’t control everything. That you may fail. And you will get up, adjust and get better. The energy you’re saving for being spent worrying, actually frees you to focus on being your best, instead of expecting the worse.