Obsessed with the -est

For as long as I can remember, I have had a compulsion to be the best. The best at whatever I could do well, and if I couldn’t then it wasn’t worth my time.

While I was usually one of the smartest and funniest, I certainly wasn’t the athletic-est, so sports went by the wayside.

I constantly sought perfection in anything I chose to do.

It was both an internal and external struggle, and it broke me.

I found myself in therapy working on this perfection compulsion. We are working through why it is there and what I can do about it. I am learning to say things like “I have perfectionistic tendencies” rather than identifying as a perfectionist. And slowly I am re-evaluating my life and identifying what can be less-than perfection (HINT: it’s just about everything).

Beyond that, I am reminded that I was made by a mighty God who deemed His creations to be good, and that opinion didn’t stop in the Garden of Eden. If my God loves me and gave me this body and these capabilities, then I should love it as He does and use it as He intended.

I am moving from an achievement mindset to one of contentment. To be happy in what I can do, to challenge myself to do more, and to judge myself by my own rubric — Progress over Perfection.

Sarah Keating
Sarah is a 30-something mom of four children under six and wife to her high-school sweetheart. She returned to Acadiana two years ago following her husband’s completion of medical school and residency in Shreveport. After the move, Sarah switched gears from full-time pediatric speech-language pathologist and working mom to full-time stay-at-home mom to her brood. Her current hobbies include “speech-therapizing” her children, re-reading the Outlander series, catching up on her Netflix queue after the kids go to bed, completing XHIT videos at naptime, and taking her medication every morning. She loves and respects the sacredness of motherhood, but sometimes you just have to let go and laugh it out. Motherhood has been the most humbling, and empowering journey she has experienced.

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