Being Average Is the New Perfect

Have you heard the latest? Being a perfectionist is OUT. So are all forms of self-abuse.

We health professionals and lifestyle gurus out there are trying to create a new world where the focus of life is to be joyful and pleasurable, rather than guilt-ridden and pressure-filled. We try to help our clients develop self-compassion and make friends with themselves by talking to themselves nicely and practising self-care activities.

I often hear the refrain, “I was selfish and put myself first”. What’s selfish about that? In my view selfish is when you never consider another person’s feelings. Not when you weigh up the situation and all the needs involved and decide yours need to come first this time around.

Something has gone wrong in our culture where we think it is selfish to look after ourselves and make ourselves happy. In her book “Chic and Slim”, Anne Barone talks about her Southern American upbringing where the only acceptable form of pleasure was eating (everything else was apparently a sin) and how this made her morbidly obese until she visited France, where she was exposed to the idea of doing things for pleasure, including eating, and she lost all the weight. In her view it was the “sweetness of living” versus “no pain, no gain” mentalities.

This puritanical attitude still has its insidious tentacles in our attitudes towards life. That it is not OK to experience pleasure. This is what we must address. This is one reason perfectionism is so rife. Perfectionism is a form of self-abuse. We beat ourselves up for making mistakes, and place impossibly high standards on ourselves and sometimes others as well.

No perfectionists wanted, thank you.

How about if, instead of abusing ourselves, we make the most of our assets, seek out the things that we love to do and care for ourselves well? What a wonderful world it would be. And so it can be. It all starts with you, making small changes in your own life.

How about for once, instead of spending your day off rushing around doing errands for others, you did a couple, and then spent the rest of the day reading a book and having a bubble bath or something equally relaxing and nurturing? No, it’s not selfish; it will put you in a good mood which will be nice for everyone around you.

Let’s talk about being average. This does not mean boring — please don’t get confused. It is not about not doing amazing things. The idea of being average is about taking the pressure off yourself and realising that you, as one human being on the planet, cannot do it all, all by yourself. You need help with things. We all do. That’s why everyone has different talents, so we can offer the world different things and be interdependent.

Being average is about recognising your limitations and doing what you can. And if it is too much, asking for help without shame and embarrassment. Yes, you CAN do amazing things, but contrary to popular belief, you can’t do it all. For example, you may be able to win an Oscar or a Logie or write a book or win a sports competition, but unless you have a maid, your house will likely be messy. It’s about being OK with that. We all have limits on our time, energy and resources.

So let’s start a movement where we celebrate being average. Let’s create a world where it’s OK to have a messy house, to forget an appointment once in a while, to ask someone for help if life gets too overwhelming to manage alone.

My favourite example of this was in a Facebook mums group where a whole group of mums posted photos of what their kitchens REALLY looked like, yes before they tidied up for a guest. The whole exercise was so liberating and empowering for all those women to see that everyone else’s kitchen was just as messy as theirs. It was a group pressure release exercise. This is what I’m talkin’ about, ladies.

Honor Jane Newman has a master’s degree in psychology. She specialises in helping women who deal with perfectionism, anxiety and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, and made that work more accessible to others in her book, “Killing the Perfectionist Within.”