My Best is Good Enough

Bringing insight to perfectionism

Perfectionism is something we all grapple with. It is a natural part of our patriarchal struggle for acceptance in our community. Our brains are basic and hard wired for survival. We experience much of life as binary - live or die, black or white, right or wrong.

We learn acceptable and non-acceptable behaviours from the adults around us — by what they say and through what their actions show us. We develop belief systems around what we need to do to fit into the prescribed parameters and, when we deeply believe that our conduct is unbecoming, we create defence mechanisms, reactions and other safety measures to adjust our behaviour so that we will not be ‘thrown out of the tribe’.

Yes, this logic is faulty, but with our conditioning and societally programmed, undeveloped brains, it makes sense. The deep, underlying belief pattern that sits as root cause beneath all others is that:

If we are rejected from the community, we will be cast out into the wilderness, and we will die.

‘Fitting in’ is therefore imperative to feel that we are secure within our group and will be able to progress to adulthood.

Perfectionism is often used by us as we strive for unobtainable, dizzying heights of success, reinforcing our belief system on the way that we are not enough and nothing we do will ever be good enough. This cyclical behaviour feels safe — try to do our best, most perfect work, fail, keep trying, keep pushing, keep proving. And, in the mean time, keep proving that we aren’t good enough, perfect enough and worthy enough for the success and belonging we crave.

What we forget, often, is that we are already perfectly imperfect, messily human and divinely guided.

Our desire to control, perfect and please everyone and everything around us can create a perceived feeling of safety and necessity. We feel like we are needed and wanted, and that we are adding value to our life and to others around us.

The truth of the matter is, that when we fall into this trap, we add more stress and pressure to our life because perfectionism is simultaneously unobtainable and already obtained.

We are divinely, messily and perfectly human and we don’t need to change.

The stories we create, however, require us to think that we’re not good enough, worthy enough, or loveable just as we are, and that we need to take action to ensure others don’t ‘find us out’.

‘My Best Is Good Enough’ is the statement I use as a Kinesiologist in clinic to test the stress of perfection held within my clients. Technically, the answer we should get from the body is

‘Yes, my best is good enough.’

Clearly, with our internal landscape and conditioning, this is rarely the case.

The second question to back it up is the percentage to which we state that it is true — ‘My Best is 100%’. All we can ever give is 100% of what we have to offer, so that also should test as a strong, positive answer.

Regularly, this percentage heads into the thousands, which equates to a problem. If your ‘My best is 100%’ tests up at say 2,600%, it means that you are trying to do the work of 26 perfect people to consider yourself good enough. Each perfect person we are striving to be equates to 100%.

In essence, with the above example, we are trying to live up to 26 people’s ideas and ideals of perfectionism. If we assume that each of those people are holding a War and Peace sized rule book containing their ideals of perfection, and an exhaustive list of what ‘perfect’ means to them, we can see the absurdity of living to this belief and all it implies.

Therefore, every day we are hustling and striving to live up to 26 rule books of perfection, each containing conflicting and different rules and measures for what perfect is. Exhausting much?

The actions we take when we look externally for ideal perfection, create a huge amount of stress and pressure on the body. We are living up to standards which can’t be achieved by anyone as they actually don’t exist. Perfection is not a one-size-fits-all strategy for living.

Our nervous system is constantly on the lookout for threats to our perfection. And, knowing that we can’t live up to that causes our Reticular Activating System (RAS) to go into overdrive by bringing everything that disproves our perfection into our consciousness.

What an endlessly tiring cycle. This constant drive for perfection mixed with people-pleasing and a healthy dose of attempting to fix all the problems of the world is often a major underlying cause of exhaustion, adrenal dysfunction, anxiety, and other nervous system disorders.

Our life’s work is to learn how to throw out everybody else’s rule books.

Create a bonfire with them if you must.

Image by Rafael Juárez from Pixabay

Tune into your heart and soul, and replace all of those rule books with one simple question:

What’s in my Highest Good RIGHT NOW?

This is, in truth, one of the only questions you need to direct your unique internal compass. It removes a great deal of external stress and pressure from your life and retunes you to your internal landscape and values.

Your ideal of perfection changes from moment to moment and has multiple external influences — your energy levels, how much sleep you got, the weather, and so much more. Therefore, your perfect breakfast today will have different requirements tomorrow, as will everything you need for your personal growth, fulfilled needs and wants, and the work, relationships and roles you undertake daily.

Your ‘Highest Good’ can never be detrimental to others.

Your Highest Good takes into account that we are all inextricably linked within the fabric of the Oneness of the Universe. If you operate at your Highest Purpose and bring it into the world, it can only be beneficial to others regardless of their perception.

Think about trudging through another long day at work, then going home to cook dinner. You know you have ingredients for a healthy salad in the fridge, but you’re tired and don’t have the energy to make it.

What will be in the Highest Good for you in that moment? You have a couple of choices.

You can go home and cut up salad with resentment and anger. A definite choice — and trust me, I’ve done it. But guess what’s going into the food? Yep, resentment and anger! And everyone eats a harder-to-digest meal even though, in theory, it’s healthy.

Another option is stopping at the fish and chip shop on the way home and picking up takeaway. When you plonk it in the middle of the table at home, you remove the associated stress of cooking and food prep. And the food you digest could actually have a greater overall benefit.

Instead of a healthy salad laden with resentment and anger dressing, you ingest a meal without stress, pressure and negativity.

Believe it or not, on the odd occasion, that will be the perfect meal. When I’ve done this, my family thinks I’m the best for bringing home a treat, I feel less stressed, and we all sit around and have a laugh.

Sometimes, this is the healthier option of the two. By reducing stress and pressure, increasing relaxation and prioritising connection with family, we can actually improve our digestion. Our emotional, spiritual, social, mental and energetic selves are all being nourished and nurtured, and the physical body can certainly better digest a less healthy meal when there is an increase in goodness for those other aspects of Self.

Other times, you may well be prepared to cut up that salad knowing that you need the goodness but being in full clarity about the option you choose is the empowering and life-changing part of the above scenario.

Whichever choice you make, if it is in your Highest Good, right in that moment it will be the perfect choice for you. And the overall benefits will be in everyone’s favour.

Embodying your own full discernment around ‘What’s in my Highest Good right now?’ takes away our reliance on external sources and brings the power back to us helping us achieve internal truth over external influence.

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