By Hafsatu Z Bangura
Imagine if you lived without the fear of not being good enough. If you didn’t care how your life looked on Instagram, or worry about what total strangers thought of you. Imagine if you could let go of the guilt, and stop beating yourself up for tiny mistakes. What if, in every decision you faced, you took the bolder path?
Too many of us feel crushed under the weight of our own expectations. We run ourselves ragged trying to please everyone, all the time. We lose sleep ruminating about whether we may have offended someone, pass up opportunities that take us out of our comfort zones, and avoid rejection at all costs.
As girls, we were taught to play it safe. Well-meaning parents and teachers praised us for being quiet and polite, urged us to be careful so we didn’t get hurt, and steered us to activities to bring out the shine upon us.
From a young age, girls are trained to be modest, caring, polite, and accommodating. This is not a formal training, but rather one that society subconsciously instills in the mind of a young girl.
We tend to see girls as vulnerable and fragile so, as parents and educators, we want to protect them from harm. We tenderly guide them towards activities they will excel at, and steer them away from what we deem as prone to harm.
We can see it in the toys that are available to kids. Toys have a very specific gender narrative. The toys that are aimed at developing large motor and STEM skills are considered boys toys, whereas toys that involve making crafts and social interaction are aimed at girls.
It can be argued that these teachings start as young as infancy. Baby girls are sweet and are dressed up in polished outfits matching head bands, always being told that they are pretty and criticized for being messy and loud. Baby boys are assumed to be tough little men and are expected to be strong emotionally as well as physically.
When girls get older, they start to tune in to what their mothers say and do. If they hear mom unintentionally compare herself to someone else or talk critically of other women they suddenly start to get caught up in this dynamic of comparison and redirect their radar inward to determine how they measure up. The same goes for other female role model as young girls looks up to, like a teacher or relative.
It’s like a code that has been programmed into us, over many years of perfect-girl training. While it’s nice to teach our girls to be polite and considerate, we need to also raise them up to be brave, strong women. If we are constantly shielding them from negative feedback, how will they build resilience to fall apart later in life, when they encounter setbacks and criticism?
I’ve learned that perfectionism isn’t simple or one-dimensional. It’s a complex knot of lifelong beliefs, expectations, and fears. Our attitudes toward it are confusing and inconsistent; we nurture and feed it but wish like hell we could shake it. It can be an unforgiving taskmaster, naysayer, and critic all rolled into one. It greets us every morning as we stare in the mirror and keeps us awake, rehashing and ruminating over our mistakes, long into the night.
Bravery is what picks us up off the ground and keeps us going through difficult times.
If our girls focus solely on bring the best (or perfect), they are holding themselves back. They will be too afraid to speak up for themselves (to not cause conflict) and best themselves up when they make a mistake or fail at something. Striving for perfection cause unnecessary stress and anxiety and teachers girls to reach for something that is not even achievable.
Society has begun shifting towards more positive outlook for young girls. We are now telling our children, you can do and be anything! However, because of the subconscious micro-messages our girls are receiving daily, that phrase can be easily misunderstood as you have to do and be everything
How can we raise our girls to embrace bravery and let go of perfection?
Embody the power of yet- teach her to add the word yet to the end of negative statements she makes. For example if she claims, I am not good at math, coach her to say I am not good at math yet. This mental shift can have a powerful impact, especially when it comes to making mistakes.
Be a role model for bravery- kids learn from what they see and even what they don’t see. Do things that scare you so that she can realize it is okay to take risks when you are afraid.
Curb the damsel in distress! Fixing things ourselves gives us a sense of power. Teach her to fix or build things herself (age appropriate of course) so she can realize she can do it.
Encourage others to be brave too! Invite her to lift other girls up and teach them to be brave, too.
Celebrate her mistakes and teach her to try again! She will fall and have setbacks; we all do. But these failures teach us what not to do next time. They make us stronger, wiser, more vulnerable and more real.
The thinking goes something like this: If I look the right way, have the right job, land the right partner, everything will fall into place and I’ll be happy. A lie that have said to myself and fallen prey of.
At a very naïve young age I thought I had it all, planned it all, and nothing would go wrong because everything was perfect, so I thought, but as time and tide passes by I realized it’s not, never about being perfect, i passed on so many opportunities because I was afraid of even trying, I rebuked myself a lot, and as I transitioned into adulthood depression hit in on me, because the things I would have done irrespective of win or fail, I held myself back, I told myself no, no, no, u can’t do this, no u don’t have what if you fail, u are not good enough, things I knew would have at least made an impact in my life coming from a girl who had suffered from traumas of a dysfunctional home, somehow I should have dammed perfection and go for it, but I was scared of losing, I was scared of society.
My mother, was always supportive of my ideas and encouraged me to go for it, but it was never enough because my mind was clouded of perfection, now this is where depression knocks in without u hearing the front door bell ringing, and I was consumed with rage, confused about my identity, about life, who I was or why am I alive, in as much as the word of God helped me, i stood my grounds and fought my demons (fear).
To achieve our perfect ideal, we log our 10,000 steps a day, work out seven times a week, cut carbs out of our diets. We read endless articles, blogs, and books on how to advance in our careers, find work-life balance, and attract the ideal partner. We go after the hot job or role in our community that everyone tells us we’d be perfect for. We have two point five kids, buy the perfect house, and acquire all the right stuff.
And yet, are we happy? The numbers say no.
We should be happier, but we’re not. When we’re chasing perfection, we can end up in jobs, relationships, and life situations we don’t necessarily want to be in. We think that checking all the requisite boxes will lead to joy and fulfillment, but eventually we get to the bottom of the list and think, Oh, shit … why am I not happy?
We choose partners who fit the bill, even if we aren’t genuinely in love or happy. Or, like a lot of women I met, we stay years too long in a career we don’t love simply because we’re good at it. Even when we wake up and realize that we are in the wrong career, or relationship, or life, the idea of making a change is terrifying, partly because we take it as a sign of failure and partly because it means we may have to go way outside our comfort zone to start over.
And in conclusion support her to try something she isn’t great at! Raising our girls without the expectation to be perfect starts small. It may seem overwhelming at first, but the good news is, it is never too late shifting this perfect girl mindset.
Brave is a positive word it’s something we aspire to be. Built into the world is the understanding that the person is scared and yet they are doing something anyway. Scared is here to stay, anxiety is part of our life, it’s not our job to vanquish these feelings, it’s our job to develop the resources we need to march forward anyway.