Welcome to the high-key perfectionist life: the lifestyle where you need absolutely everything absolutely perfect and absolutely everyone knows it. I've been this way since as long as I can remember, where I've harbored the "if-it's-not-an-A-it's-an-F" mentality up to this day. The high-key perfectionist lifestyle looks desirable from a distance, but everyone who leads this lifestyle knows it comes with internal struggles as far as the eye can see. So, here's just six struggles to let you into the mind of the high-key perfectionist from one of the worst: yours truly.
1. You don't settle for anything less than perfect.
If something isn't up to your standards, you go at it until it's 100 percent done the way you want it done. And the way you want it done is always top-notch, flawless, and far overthought. It needs to be something you're proud of. Settling is not an option; success is the only option. Even stupid things like taking a picture – you'll take 50,324,892,375 pictures until you get the perfect one (shout out to my ladies who understand this on another level).
2. You're harder on yourself than anyone will ever know.
One of the biggest wars you wage is against yourself for not being good enough. I mentioned the "if-it's-not-an-A-it's-an-F" mentality before – thinking you're worthless, stupid or good-for-nothing if not the best of the best. Your mind will eat you alive each time you slip up. This struggle keeps us perfectionists in check, however; that's a plus.
3. You cannot physically be late. Ever.
Being late is unacceptable. Being on-time means being at least five minutes early. It's a dumb struggle, but kind of like No. 5 says, you're harder on yourself than anyone will ever know. And being late is not a trait perfectionists can mentally handle. Speaking of time, you also can't stand not doing something for two seconds. Keeping busy at all times is a must.
4. You judge everyone else's work ethic and turnout of such work waaaaaay too much.
If there's as much as a grammatical error in someone else's work, you're quick to judge and even fix it. When people half-ass/procrastinate/refuse to do their work, you kind of scream inside for a solid eternity. Watching non-perfectionists function is something you cannot compute and could not imagine living day to day.
5. You dwell on every single mistake.
Not only are you harder on yourself than anyone will every know, you over-analyze every move you make – especially the wrong ones. Mistakes are imprinted into your brain like you were burned with a hot iron. Your brain won't let you forget the feelings of regret, shame and guilt for not being the absolute best. You'll attempt to pin where you went wrong, overthinking it until you drive yourself crazy. And you will drive yourself crazy.
6. Overall...you care too much.
And with overthinking comes over-caring, if there's such a thing. You care more than humanly possible about anything and everything, from a shirt being perfectly folded to a GPA being a 4.0. You care too much about success most of all because perfection = success in your mind, even though that may not be necessarily true in a lot of instances.
And although there are struggles as far as the eye can see in the life of a high-key perfectionist, any one of us would admit it's worth all the struggle more often than not given the outcome. The struggle makes it worthwhile, and it can be a healthy lifestyle as long as you make sure to realize not everything can/will be perfect and that that's okay sometimes.
So, shout out to all the fellow high-key perfectionists out there: because we couldn't have it any other way. Literally.
