Ready...Aim...Oh, Well...

By Martha Beck
Martha Beck

Martha Beck is human. Humans goof. So why does she get her knickers in a twist about being flawless 24/7? A reformed perfectionist tells how she silenced the barking mosquito in her head.

At the moment (though not, I hope, by the time you read it), this article is a mess of redundant, poorly phrased, haphazardly punctuated drivel. At the top, written in bold capital letters, is the working title I use for all new projects: shitty first draft. I owe this graceful phrase to writer-teacher Anne Lamott, who recommends the shitty first draft as an indispensable phase of literary creation—and, for that matter, any other human endeavor.

Most people realize that perfectionism, as Lamott puts it in her book Bird by Bird, "is the voice of the oppressor, the enemy of the people. It will keep you cramped and insane your whole life." But seriously unwell people such as me run into trouble when we try to let go of perfectionism. We end up getting perfectionistic about our attempts to stop being perfectionists. I began finding my way out of this psychological morass when I heard the Buddhist saying "To be enlightened is to be without anxiety over imperfection." Years after adopting this perspective, I'm still a perfectionist, but here's the thing: I don't care.

Reforming the Perfectionist in You
I've found some reliable ways to reduce my anxiety about my imperfections, including my imperfection at ridding myself of perfectionism.

I encourage you to try doing the following exercises?—imperfectly.