I finished a project management seminar my company sent me to for two days today. It was at a hotel in downtown DC so i got to pretend I was Mary Tyler Moore in the morning business crowds. No hat to toss though. Can't stand the hat hair. I settled on wearing tights and a skirt from Banana Republic.
I learned a whole lot. I was reminded of the Work Breakdown System (WBS) I studied for a semester in my masters program. The seminar leader said many good sentences that related not only to project management but also real life. One that resonated with me was:
"I cannot reach perfection but I can reach excellence," shown bright on his power point.
He also said procrastinators tend to be perfectionists.
Obviously, he was talking about me. I had no idea it was common knowledge that both traits typically resided as a pair, but now, suddenly, everything makes a whole lot more sense.
Besides my basic personality trapping me into a nasty perfectionism habit, I believe growing up as an American Woman is a big part to deal with it as well.
I feel as an American we emphasize competition, being the best, being "special", standing higher than the "average" crowd. There has always been a pressure to be "the best" - and sometimes one can equate this need to be the best with being "perfect."
Besides this American ideal of being an independent, self reliant being at all times, throw the WOMAN factor in there:
As a woman in America there is a tremendous pressure to be all the things everyone in your life needs you to be. You must be the "perfect" mother, daughter, sister, lover, employee, artist, mother goddess, yogi....the list can go on as long as you think it can.
The media perpetuates these two beliefs through ads. I found a recent article in the Atlantic to be really disturbing regarding how advertisers try to market to women when they "feel their most ugly." This graphic below is from that article.
SO THAT'S PRETTY MESSED UP.
The fact that the media is targeting women, and trying to feed off our already deflated esteem is pretty sick.
We must strive for excellence - not perfection - in order to stop these daily assaults our self-worth experiences.
I'm going to add this idea to my daily practice. Instead of perfection, I'm going to seek excellence. I'd rather chase after something I know I may eventually be able to catch.
It reminds me again of one of my favorite Mary Oliver poems:
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about your despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting --
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.
I learned a whole lot. I was reminded of the Work Breakdown System (WBS) I studied for a semester in my masters program. The seminar leader said many good sentences that related not only to project management but also real life. One that resonated with me was:
"I cannot reach perfection but I can reach excellence," shown bright on his power point.
He also said procrastinators tend to be perfectionists.
Obviously, he was talking about me. I had no idea it was common knowledge that both traits typically resided as a pair, but now, suddenly, everything makes a whole lot more sense.
Besides my basic personality trapping me into a nasty perfectionism habit, I believe growing up as an American Woman is a big part to deal with it as well.
I feel as an American we emphasize competition, being the best, being "special", standing higher than the "average" crowd. There has always been a pressure to be "the best" - and sometimes one can equate this need to be the best with being "perfect."
Besides this American ideal of being an independent, self reliant being at all times, throw the WOMAN factor in there:
As a woman in America there is a tremendous pressure to be all the things everyone in your life needs you to be. You must be the "perfect" mother, daughter, sister, lover, employee, artist, mother goddess, yogi....the list can go on as long as you think it can.
The media perpetuates these two beliefs through ads. I found a recent article in the Atlantic to be really disturbing regarding how advertisers try to market to women when they "feel their most ugly." This graphic below is from that article.
SO THAT'S PRETTY MESSED UP.
The fact that the media is targeting women, and trying to feed off our already deflated esteem is pretty sick.
We must strive for excellence - not perfection - in order to stop these daily assaults our self-worth experiences.
I'm going to add this idea to my daily practice. Instead of perfection, I'm going to seek excellence. I'd rather chase after something I know I may eventually be able to catch.
It reminds me again of one of my favorite Mary Oliver poems:
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about your despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting --
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.
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