Gracie Girl Blog

Ironically, I began writing this post a year and a half ago in May of 2020. If that doesn’t prove I’m a perfectionist, I don’t know what does.

There’s a personality test called the Enneagram that gained popularity a few years ago. It does a good job of explaining nine different personality types and has taught me a lot about myself. I’m a Type 1: The Perfectionist.

Here’s a graph of all the types:

When I took the test, I was surprised because I did not consider myself a perfectionist at the time. I don’t mind getting messy, I didn’t put a lot of value in getting straight As by the end of high school (..mm that may not be true but in college it definitely is), and there are a lot of creative projects I start but don’t finish. Turns out, I am a perfectionist but in deeper ways than finishing my homework completely.

A defining characteristic of a Type 1 is the inner critic, a voice in your head telling you everything you are doing wrong. I was surprised to learn (and still quite don’t understand) that everyone doesn’t have this. It’s like a constant judge in my head bringing up the slight ways I could’ve done better or be doing better. This ranges from “Is my car parked straight enough?” to “Was ending that friendship a good idea?”.

My inner critic isn’t always on but it usually is and it speaks to the fear that I might be disappointing someone. Whether its a stranger, someone who knows me well, or myself it doesn’t really matter, the inner critic points out all the ways I fall short.

What if I don’t have to be perfect? What if its okay to disappoint people?

Deep down, I know it’s literally impossible to be perfect and I know a part of life is disappointing people. But simply saying “No one is perfect” is not really a motivator for me because I am also a competitive person and my response will be “well lets see how close to perfect I can get.”

I’ve used the term “recovering perfectionist” before and while I hope that’s true most of the time, I think a more accurate term is “coping perfectionist.” I can see where I might disappoint someone and choose to either dwell on it (coping) or move on (recovering).

I should probably also mention that this is often in terms of decisions I make that are not black and white. Stuff life quitting a job, saying no to a social event I just don’t have the energy for, or setting boundaries with my time. These things are best for me but might cause someone else pain and that’s where the overthinking starts and the inner critic can sneak in. I have an innate sense of right and wrong most of the time, which is a benefit of being a Type One.

So what if I said yes to letting people down? What if I accepted everyone will not always be happy with me and that’s okay? This is the mental shift I’m working toward in 2022.

Since I have spent a lot of time with the Enneagram, here are some other things I’ve learned about myself. Some have to do with being a Type 1 but others just have to do with being me:

• It’s hard when people affirm the inner critic (tell me I’m doing something wrong/bad) but feels good when they contradict it (tell me I’m doing something good when I have a list of what Im doing wrong going through my head).
• I hold myself and others to an impossibly high standard (working on this one). The moral code I live by is not easily shaken or disobeyed by me. People have expectations of me, but my expectations of myself are almost always higher. I’ve learned this can manifest in me coming off judgmental even when I have someone’s best interest in mind. It’s a tough balance between holding others accountable but not trying to control their actions.
• I think in black and white. The hardest decisions to make are those without a clear right answer. Give me an obscure, low stakes scenario, like smashing a watermelon on the driveway, and I can give you reasons as to why that is a right or wrong thing to do. Ask me to pick between 2 colleges that are “equally good” and I will struggle for weeks because nothing can be equally good and one has to be more right (Real life example). Another great example of this is when I’m buying something I often end up in analysis paralysis because I like to compare all the options.
• I am justice oriented. I tend to have strong opinions about what should happen when injustice occurs. I hate injustice and it makes me angry.
• It is only by the grace of God I am not a constantly angry person. Wanting an imperfect world to be perfect is exhausting, let me tell you. And it can be really easy for me to get mad a situation even exists. (An example: if a class is really hard and I struggle to understand, I am not mad about not understanding. I’m mad because classes are made to be learning environments and therefore should be understandable). My answer to the moral dilemma are ways the dilemma should have been avoided in the first place.
• Forgiveness can be tough. Back to the justice topic, forgiveness often means letting go of justice being served to whoever hurt you. I all too often prefer to hurt back or be petty before I forgive. Working on this.
• I enjoy politics. This is partly because I grew up less than an hour away from the nation’s capital but also because politics have a lot to do with deciding what is morally right, especially when it comes to leadership. At the same time, its really hard to watch injustice happen and continue to happen through politics.
• I’m passionate about good leadership. Leading well, in any part of life, is so important to me. I’m a natural leader and so my selfish answer to leadership dilemmas is usually that I could lead better. I struggle a lot with changes in leadership and don’t trust leaders easily. A lot this stems from growing up in church/ministry and having some amazing leaders in my life as well as less-than-ideal ones.

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Those are just some things I have learned from the Enneagram. It really has helped me understand myself and my motivations better. I highly recommend looking into it if you haven’t already, and if you have, maybe write down some of the things you’ve learned about yourself in the last few years. It may be more than you think!