Progression VS Perfection

This week I did a thing and I'm super excited about it!

Let me give you just a lil' background:

I am a perfectionist....like withdrew- from- a- class- and- then- changed- my- major- because- I- was- afraid- of- failing- kind of perfectionist.

If you've ever read about fixed VS growth mindsets (which I highly recommend that you do), I have a very bad case of fixed mindset.

This battle with perfectionism has done good for me in some instances (good grades and a clean house for the win), but it has held me back in more (quit piano, didn't audition for musicals until I was a senior in high school, afraid to tackle new projects/hobbies, strong need to please others even at my own expense, etc.).

As I worked through my teaching degree, I realized more and more that I needed to shake this perfection thing and focus on progression. As a teacher of young children, I can't hold them to perfection; they are just learning pretty much everything. In every class I was taught that I needed to encourage kids to keep trying, to motivate them to keep working hard, to focus on any progress that they were making, and to always make them feel like they could achieve what they truly set their mind to. I started to feel like a major hypocrite when I would say to a student "keep working hard, I know that you will be able to do this", but yet, I didn't believe that about many things that I had tried in my life.

Over the past few years, I've slowly started to chip away at my fixed mindset and rebuild it as a growth mindset and let me tell you, it has not been easy. I'm so used to being great at something or making up a reason for why I'm not (I am the queen of justification...not a title I'm super proud of haha). But as I've come to terms with my depression and anxiety, I've realized that perfectionism leads to higher levels of them. I get anxiety over failing (or even the thought that failure might be a possibility) and I get severely depressed when I fail or when I give up on something because I am afraid of failing.

As you can probably gather, this creates a very downward cycle and I've been trying to get myself out of it.

This brings me to what I did that made me so excited.

I completed a sewing project!!!!!!

I know that might not seem like some amazing accomplishment, but to me it is huge. My mom is great with a sewing machine and a few times she has tried to teach me how to do some simple sewing, but I would get frustrated so easily. Sewing is not a good hobby for a perfectionist to pick up. Straight lines, finicky sewing machines, threading a bobbin, so many things to set off my frustration. However, I purchased a sewing machine last summer and I was determined to use it. My mom helped me sew the feather bed cover on our bed and without her help I would never have completed it. Then we moved to Texas and my sewing machine sat in our office until this week. I had sewing projects I wanted to work on, but I was to scared to tackle any of them without the guiding hand of my mom. This week, though, I was gonna do something with that dang machine.

A month or so ago I decided that I wanted to start using cloth napkins (Jimmy and I are started to switch to more eco-friendly items in the kitchen), but I couldn't find the color I wanted (gray/polka-dots) in the fabric I wanted (100% cotton) in a decent price range. Then I got an email from Target with their weekly ad and they had a four-pack of flour sack cloths that fit the bill for what I was looking for. We happened to making a trip to San Antonio (our closest Target), so I picked up a pack (and they were on sale for only $5, so winner, winner, chicken dinner). Then they sat in our office for a month waiting for me to work up to doing something with them.

(the pup has to be wherever I am)

This week the stars aligned to give me most days off of work, so I decided I was gonna get stuff done. I pulled out the sewing machine, threaded it all up (with a minor bout of frustration and some help from my ever-patient hubby) and got to work.

(I had no sewing pins, so I made the best of it with some thumb tacks)

It took me about 4 days (an hour or two each day) to finish these napkins and I am so happy with how they turned out! But, they are far from perfect. The first few have a rough edge because it wasn't until the second day that I thought of folding them over twice to get a nice clean edge. None of my lines are straight and I had to do a good share of un-threading (is that even a word) and trying again. I did get a little frustrated a few times, but I was SO DANG PROUD of myself for finishing this project. I excitedly held them up to show Jimmy and I even FaceTimed my mom to show off my work. It felt so good to do something, however imperfect. And throughout the whole project, whenever I saw the imperfections or wanted to scrap the whole thing, I reminded myself that this was my first solo sewing project and that I shouldn't expect perfection. What I could expect (and what did happen) was progression. From the first napkin to the last, the quality increased greatly (like I was looking back over one of the last ones I did and it took me a hot minute to figure out which sides were the ones I sewed and which ones were sewed by whoever sews for Target).

So, I decided that a blog post was in order to encourage you to fight any perfectionistic tendencies you may have. Try something you've been hesitant about because you were afraid of failing. Focus on the progress you make and celebrate your effort and hard-work. Look at your imperfections and learn from them. Show off your work and be proud of it. My napkins are now proudly sitting on our kitchen table and I'm super excited for us to start using them.

Perfectionism is still something I struggle with (and will probably struggle with for a while) but I'm working on it (see what I did there???). If you struggle with perfectionism, know that you aren't alone and that fighting against it is so worth it. When you are feeling the need to be perfect at something, stop, take a deep breath, remind yourself that you don't need to be perfect, focus on your progress, and keep going.

If you've ever done something to battle your perfectionism or if you're making progress on a hobby or project, please share! I would love to hear your story and be motivated by you.

And remember, focus on progression, NOT perfection.

Stay messi (and imperfect),

Jessi