How does perfectionism take root in your life?
- Melissa Maouris
- Jul 16, 2025
- 2 min read
Updated: Mar 24
No one is born with a desire to be perfect. We are born full of love for every person we encounter.
Perfectionism is learnt from our immediate and wider environment.
From a society in pursuit of progress that teaches us to compete from an early age.
From family systems that have unresolved wounds of their own that get projected onto us.
I remember being proud of being a perfectionist in my twenties. Of feeling that this trait had served me well in helping me build a successful business.
Back then perfectionism resulted in long hours, an overworking ethic and going to extreme lengths to get results.
Perfectionism also manifests as self sabotage and procrastination. A fear of not meeting our own expectations can lead to feeling paralysed.
Underneath perfectionism is the feeling of not being good enough. This pushes us to do more than is needed or to not even start at all.
Society rewards perfectionism. Our constant need to compete is dressed up as making progress. However really it’s masking a deep wound of unworthiness.
How do you get beyond it?
❤️ We reparent the stories that keep it in place.
🧡 We tend to the emotions beneath them.
💛 We stop distracting or numbing.
My affirmation that helped me break that pattern of imperfection in myself and others was “I’m perfectly imperfect.”
It helped me face the shame and disappointment in myself I was feeling. I still need to tend to the younger version of me that didn’t learn how to accept and love herself as she was.
When you push yourself to be perfect, you dishonour the uniqueness of who you really are.
How does perfectionism show up in your life?
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