I go on about perfectionism a lot, I know. Someone out there is probably rolling their eyes and thinking, “Alyssa, you gotta get over this.” 

My relationship with perfectionism and competition, well, it’s partly how I was raised and partly the educational and professional environments I put myself in. So needless to say, this expectation of performance, perfect performance, has been kind of drummed into me. And subsequently, I have a real dilemma with it.

I want to ask you what I’ve recently been asking myself: 

Have you ever stopped to wonder if the high bars of achievement you set for yourself are really yours? Or alternatively, if your relationship with high performance is sending a message to your family members that they’re only as good as their last win? 

Every day we send and receive signals about performance and productivity and our brains use that data to guide our decisions about education, career paths and even what we eat, where we live and how we dress.

I got to thinking about this on a recent vacation with my husband. We met another couple, both doctors, whose children were following in their footsteps. Were they proud parents? Of course. But when the wife/mother started wondering aloud what her life would have looked like if she’d chosen another path of study in life, it occurred to me that one day her children may be wondering that, too. 

Is it bad to have high standards? To be driven? Absolutely not, but where we can get into trouble is when we reach a point where nothing is “enough”, that point where we say to ourselves, “You know what? I’m badass. I did it and I did it on my terms.” 

We are perfect together when we make the decision that we – and our family members - are enough and that’s what I’m talking about in this episode of Real Confidence.