Years ago I took a personality test. Love those things. It came back with a nice neat label for my kind of people: perfectionists. My husband raised one eyebrow and went back to reading to the bottom of the internet. He’s lived with a perfectionist for years and doesn’t need a personality test to confirm it. I, on the other hand, laughed and dismissed it under the belief that I am much more flexible and spontaneous than the stereotypical perfectionist. Nothing wrong with having high standards, right?

In grade six, I received a spelling test with a score of 99/100. A sarcastic crack from the teacher left me in tears: “You could have done better, Kylie.” (In his defence, it was the eighties and they let teachers be smart arses then.) I was unhappy with that single mistake. I didn’t like the feeling of making mistakes.

Through my early twenties and into my thirties, I was successful as far as the standard definition of the word goes.

University degree (HD average, thank you very much)? Tick.
Save up and travel overseas? Tick.
Marry and have kids? Tick.
Buy a house? Tick.

Then in my forties …

Write a book? Tick.
Rule the world? Working on it.

I mastered things by putting in the groundwork and applying my knowledge. Working hard equals achieving goals. A mantra on repeat in my head. The problem, I discovered, is that there are times in our lives when how hard we work has zero impact on the outcome.

Take parenting. A crash helmet and full-padded body suit could not have protected me from the fall I took when I had children. Failure became not just my first name but my middle and surnames. This was new and very uncomfortable for me. I did not fail elegantly.

Our babies were non-sleepers (that very idea is part of the inspiration behind my second novel). Nothing my husband and I did made a scrap of difference to their sleep. We read books, attended sleep school, listened to advice from other parents. No response from our babies. By the fourth child, we gave up and conceded these were the shit babies we made. Luckily, they are nice teenagers who now sleep too much (and I let them).

From babies onto books. Publishing a book is not unlike having a baby although I recognise that the “book baby” analogy is grossly overused. Essentially you put your heart and soul into something and then send it off into the world and watch that heart walk around untethered for people to poke and prod. OK. Maybe a little melodramatic. We can hope and manifest all we like, but ultimately so much is out of our control. Just like parenting. And for a perfectionist, that lack of control is … oof, an adjustment! If we think about our health, other people’s opinions of us, the economy, pandemics, the passing of time—they all fall into the category of things we cannot always control.

However, when you centre your identity around being the best at something, what happens when you’re not? Do you do like I did as a child and just not try new things in case I was, shock horror, bad at it? Sadly, the beast inside is never happy with good enough when you’re a perfectionist and being content with anything less than top tier is no easy battle.

Owning my perfectionist tendencies is only one component. The world is constantly telling us to do our best. Push harder. Give 100%. Buzz phrases like “develop a growth mentality” and quips like “winning isn't everything; it's the only thing” end up on cushion covers long after we’re sick of hearing them.

School kids compete for top of the class, school captain, fastest runner, winner of the chess tournament. There’s no medal for the relaxed kid who is happy in his own skin and inclusive of others.

I wonder if our desires to be the best, to win, to achieve, to succeed would feel less acute if the world around us stopped pushing the same ideals.

There’s no doubt that society places higher value on people at the peak of their game. Money and status, power and awards. Is it a desire to fit in and be liked that drives some of us to keep achieving to unrealistic standards so we can belong?

I think it’s part of it, although this doesn’t explain those wonderful (and frankly foreign) people I see who are not swept into this whirlwind. They don’t need to be the best. They are not driven by titles, money, status or accolades. Maybe they’ve just figured out that the sacred values of being loved and loving another, of having family and friends who support us, of achieving a dream whether that be planting a glorious garden, taking a once-in-a-lifetime world trip or writing that book—are what make society rich. Perhaps they understand the distinction between ambition and achievement and hunt for the joy in participating rather than focus on the obsession with winning.

I might get a new cushion to remind me that I don’t always need to do my best, and in some cases I have no control over the outcome anyway. Sometimes I can simply do what is adequately good for the circumstances. Maybe I don’t want to rule the world. Anyone want a cushion?

KOx

[Un]reasonably outraged by … “be the best” mentality

Should authors also be marketers?

What’s in a [book] name?