I tend to be a bit of a perfectionist. Blame it on the fact I’m a Capricorn. Perfection is in my nature. I can’t help it. It drives my husband crazy! This is especially true when we are expecting company. He knows the week leading up to their visit will be filled with fun “honey do” lists and me stressing myself out.
It’s a blessing and a curse. One I’m working on.
This week, I made small strides. You see, tomorrow I am hosting game night with the girls. My house will be full of friends and their kids. I love hosting because it’s a great motivator for me to get some things done. Working under pressure is what I do. It has also been a great opportunity to let go of perfection.
There was definitely a list of things to be done. Progress was made. However, that progress was far from perfection. I’m OK with that. At least I’m trying really hard to be. So here are my tips for letting go of perfection.
Tips for Letting Go of Perfection
- Let Kids Help – My daughter is at the age where she loves to help! She wants to do my chores, which means anything outside of her normal responsibilities like cleaning her room. She asked to wash the fingerprints off of the windows, so I let her. It was painful! I had to turn my eyes away when she sprayed so much cleaner on the window that it actually looked like soap. It has taken all of my concentration not to go behind her and clean them again. So I’ve decided to take pride in my smudged, still fingerprint ridden windows. She really tried! I even told her she did great and thanked her.
- Start a Project You Can’t Finish on Time – We are working on removing all of our landscaping. Clean slate to start over with our own design. Last weekend we started the project of removing the last 3 trees. I knew when we started we had bit off more than we could chew, but we continued. My husband had bought a toy to help the process, and we made a huge dent in that project. Just before the rains came. It literally rained all week during the hours we could have worked on it. Then we got hit with more rain as tropical storm/hurricane Hermine blew through. We didn’t get much from the storm. However, it was enough to make sure we didn’t get to finish the project. Now my front walk is like a maze through the jungle.
- Set a Stopping Point – I told myself that this week I would do a little each day. Whatever didn’t get done before Saturday when I put the kids to bed just wouldn’t be done. That is my unwind time. Time to kick back and do whatever I want. Tomorrow I plan to stick to it. No more projects! We are going to get up and prepare the food (simple recipes) and that is it! Tomorrow is about fun.
How do you let go of perfection and stress?
2 Comments on “Tips For Letting Go of Perfection”
This are good ideas. I love that (as a self-proclaimed Capricorn perfectionist) you’ve taken steps to break your desire for things to be perfect. Good for you!
I’m not a perfectionist, but over the years, as I’ve had more kids, I’ve learned to accept that I just don’t have enough hands to have everything done how I want. Projects are incomplete, laundry still needs folding, and I have a bunch of ideas for things to work on, but I have to be patient until the funds are available. That’s just how real life with kids is. I wrote “Perfection Does Not Exist, Moms” a few weeks ago encouraging my blog readers not to aim for perfection in motherhood. I hope you find it to be helpful in your mommy career journey.
Acceptance is the first step to being OK with our own version of perfect. You’re post was great. 🙂