For a long time, I had a misconception about perfection. I believed the only way I could be happy and love myself was if I was “perfect”. And this idea of perfection stemmed from following a set of values or ideals or fitting into these boxes of expectations that I had built for myself. It could differ from person to person, and probably include getting perfect grades or having a perfect job or a perfect relationship or even being a perfect child/parent. 

I spent so much time and energy on achieving these misconceived perfect ideals, and had a eventually huge surge of self-confidence when I finally achieved them. But the flaw with this was that I didn’t account for change and mistakes- two inevitable occurrences. 

The thing about change is that its rarely in your control and the changes in behaviour of people around you or situational changes can easily disrupt your “self-progress”. Moreover, mistakes are another completely natural and unavoidable occurrence. 

My obsession with perfection was getting so out of control that not only did it make me judgemental of others, but it made me impose these ideals onto the people around me.

Unfortunately, I learnt a lesson the hard way, when a mistake made me realise how imperfect I am. I realised that everything doesn’t revolve around the ‘self-image’ that you create for yourself. Your personal confidence shouldn’t be correlated to your success, because success is not a constant. Sometimes you just need to stop being so hard on yourself, and ironically, empathise with yourself. I’ve understood that the you are in a long-term relationship with yourself, and the only way to succeed is to love yourself despite your flaws. The only thing that made me imperfect, was my inability to recognise and embrace my imperfections.