“Refusal to accept any standard short of perfection.”

According to google, that is the definition of perfectionism. People think that being a perfectionist is a good thing, and it’s something that would be good for them to have developed. Generally, people jinx them and sometimes they are jealous of them. The most common one is that they want to be like them. But it goes way beyond that.

Perfectionism can be cool and it can get you to get so much done, and be the best version of yourself, but it comes with struggles. Many unending struggles; from personal experience, I can tell you that beating yourself up for getting a 70 on a test isn’t fun. I can assure you that failing isn’t an option and failure isn’t a word in your vocabulary. We’ve never experienced being rejected and we get crushed the first time it happened.

One of the good things Perfectionist do is striving for the best position always and working hard to get it. After a while, they become really protective of our feelings and they know exactly which path to enter and which one to skip. They tend to be detail oriented and most perfectionists are associated with OCD (obsessive compulsive disorder). The same way they want every item around them to be perfect, they need to perfect themselves.

Perfectionism starts early in the childhood, it does have to do with the personality of the kids, but their parents are a great influence as well. Parents tend to push their kids to try everything new and to always be the best at it. These kids are mostly involved in so many activates and they have a busy schedule since day one. Their parents teach them how to reach for the stars and above and how failing can be a shame. They are raised in a mentality where failing is a thing they don’t talk or think about. After they grow up, this specific aspect eases down because they start learning from their simple mistakes and they start learning that you need to get up and work harder when you fall.

They cringe every time they hear the word “average” and it bugs them so much. They try to avoid that word and they find explanations every time someone uses that word and their name in the same sentence. After a long period of straight A’s, perfectionists become the biggest procrastinators. Because they are super confident in themselves and their abilities to finish their work on time. They always go big or go home, they take everything to heart and they can’t handle criticism because it just feels like someone is hating on their perfect self.

Lastly, the hardest thing of being a perfectionist is that It’s so hard to find someone that gets you. You probably have a friend or two that are the same way as you are, but talking about certain issues with your regular friends can be hard especially when you are moving forward in life and things are getting harder just like the transition between high school and college because these friends don’t and never will understand how hard it is and how disappointed you feel when you fail yourself and your own expectations.