4 Steps to Overcome Perfectionism in Motherhood — Because It's Not Helping

Perfectionism has accompanied many of your successes in life. But now, in motherhood, it might be doing more harm than good. Learn the 4 steps to overcome perfectionism in motherhood so you can find fulfillment and live with more happiness, peace, and ease.

Perfectionism. Good-girl syndrome. Over-functioning. Type A personality.

Whatever you call it — or if it shows up but doesn’t have a name — perfectionism has served us well in our lives. The good grades, the promotions, the achievements.

Thanks for all you’ve done, Perfectionism! But things have changed. We have to talk.

In motherhood, speaking for myself here, perfectionism took me down.

It was a contributing factor in my experience of PMAD (perinatal mood and anxiety disorder). It fueled my need for vigilance and control, which I could never achieve since two small humans and a pandemic were involved. And it always made me feel like I was failing at motherhood.

Perfectionism’s job is to keep us safe. To think of everything. To take care of every detail. But in motherhood there can be SO many details. When we try to maintain some high standard that maybe came easily before kids, but now we have more demands on our bandwidth of time and energy, we end up either burning out or failing, and that makes us feel even less safe.

So how does perfectionism show up — in motherhood and otherwise?

The Perfectionism Loop

How to read that:

• Our high standards
• Lead us to overcomplicate things and overthink them
• That leads us to paralysis and inaction
• That leads us to guilt and shame
• Then we muster our strength and go right back trying to meet those high standards. We'll just try harder this time.

A well-meaning person might see this model, or might see you struggling, and say, "Just lower your standards.”

Easier said than done for those of us who’ve been living this way all our lives.

I literally had no idea how to "lower my standards." It's like when a boss told me I didn't need to do my usual A-plus-level work because my C-level work would please the clients. But this was the same job in which an error could result in extreme financial consequences and a process called "discovery" or "post mortem" to determine where errors got made. Anything less than perfect was not safe. That affects a person's nervous system.

Our perfectionism is there to keep us safe! Telling a mom with perfectionism to lower her standards is like telling her to jump without a parachute. She’s just not going to go for that option.

The real work is to meet the need to feel safe.

What can you do when you realize you’re experiencing perfectionism in motherhood?

It helps to get out of your head and into the moment.

(1) Be aware you're in the perfectionism loop.

Mindfulness practices can help with this. Here are three simple practices that can help you before, during, and after situations where perfectionism shows up.

• Before: In the morning, even before getting out of bed, check in with yourself. How do you feel in your body, in your mind, and in your spirit? Tell yourself, I am enough. I do enough. I am enough.
• During: Learn the physical cues in your body that tell you you’re letting perfectionism get the best of you. For me, I can feel flush in my cheeks or like claws are squeezing my stomach. Since I know those cues, when I sense them, I can give myself the space of a single slow exhale to pause, see what’s happening, and ease up.
• After: If you’ve let perfectionism get the better of you, you’ll need to give yourself the chance to recover. To counteract the physical stress perfectionism exerts and its mean voice, I recommend a combination of physical soothing and kind true words. For me that could be a hot shower and listening to a meditation. Or going for a walk and telling myself a loving counterpoint to whatever perfectionism was trying to make me believe. So if perfectionism is saying I’m an idiot, I would say: I am human, I am loved, perfection isn’t required of me, I am learning to find good enough.

(2) Do what it takes to feel safe, secure, and valued, REGARDLESS of what you do.

Notice I used the word FEEL. You can't think your way into this one.

In perfectionism the stakes feel so dang high. So it can be helpful to get really clear about what’s actually at stake.

You burned dinner? That’s too bad, but luckily you have cereal and milk!

(3) Remind yourself of your big-picture goals and values and claim your own standard that aligns with them.

Using the burned-dinner example, instead of worrying about the risotto, you can laugh about this, eat your cold cereal, and be together at the table. That presence in togetherness is more important to you anyway.

Mindfulness + values-based actions for the win.

(4) Practice.

It takes practice to recover from a lifetime of perfectionism. I joke that I'm recovering from perfectionism and I'm determined to do it right.

We don’t need to be perfect at recovering from perfectionism. Notice it. Be curious about it. Spend one thought considering how you might be more gentle with yourself next time. Move on. Repeat.

Mom-Win: Overcome Perfectionism in Motherhood

Since "lowering my standards" didn't feel safe to me (or really make much sense), I had to come up with another approach. Here are two approaches I reach for, depending on the situation. Give them a spin and let me know how they work for you! Comment below or send me a note: [email protected].

(1) Raise your expectations of what it takes to get the job done. It’s going to take longer, require more attention, be more difficult, and be more draining that it was before kids. If you can be clear about all that, you can make more space for it.

(2) Be clear about the time, attention, and energy you have, and based on those limitations, determine the scope of what you can accomplish without burning out.

Ready Set Recap

• Be aware that you’re in the perfectionism loop.
• Find ways to feel safe, secure, and valued regardless of what you do.
• Remind yourself of your values (what’s important to you) and define your own standards that align with them.
• Find opportunities to practice letting go and allowing good enough to be good enough.
• Raise your expectations of what it takes to get a job done.
• Be clear about the time, attention, and energy you have. Match your ambition to your capacity.

This post was all about overcoming perfectionism in motherhood. If this meant something to you, you might also like:

How to let go of perfectionism in motherhood

5 Ways to Start Taking in the Good

Resentment in Motherhood and What it can Teach Us



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