Breaking free from the mask of perfection

Do you doubt yourself/not trust your intuition?

Constantly compare yourself to others?

Struggle to express your needs for fear of rejection?

Believe that your achievements define you?

Attach your worth and happiness as a parent to your childs' success and happiness?

Have a tendency to procrastinate?

If you answered yes to three or more of these, it’s likely you believe that other people's validation, approval and opinion of you is more important than what you think of yourself.

This belief fuels the never-ending pursuit of perfection, which is often driven by the fear of judgment and criticism by others and the need to fit in and belong.

Without letting go of the need for approval, you'll continue to feel disconnected and trapped in the cycle of perfectionism.

Growing up you only received praise and validation when you achieved high grades, excelled in sports, or met certain expectations set by your parents.

This conditioning led you to believe that your worth is tied to your accomplishments and how others perceive you. You learned to associate love and acceptance with external validation, abandoning your true self in the process.

The mask of perfectionism becomes a double-edged sword. On one hand, it drives you to continuously strive for excellence, but perfection itself is just an illusion.

When we're driven by being "perfect" and needing validation from others to affirm our worth, we can become trapped in a cycle of overworking, people-pleasing, and setting impossibly high standards for ourselves and others.

The problem is, no matter how much validation you receive, it never feels like enough. You’ve become addicted to it, always needing more to fill the void within.

This addiction seeps into every aspect of your lives:

In relationships: needing constant reassurance from your partner. Doubting your worthiness of love and fearing rejection if you’re not meeting their expectations. You may struggle to express your needs for fear of rejection or criticism.

In business: perfectionists are massive procrastinators-fearing making mistakes, taking risks, or pursuing their passions because they’re afraid of failure or judgment. They constantly seek external validation to prove their competence and worthiness.

As parents, the mask of perfectionism

manifests in high expectations for your children. You want them to achieve and succeed, sometimes projecting your own unfulfilled dreams onto them, or attaching your own happiness and worth as a parent to their success and happiness.

Parents often compare themselves and their children to others and feel like a failure if they fall short to perceived expectations.

I see how parents with perfectionism struggle with showing vulnerability or admitting mistakes, which just hinders healthy emotional expression within the family. Often their children can’t make a decision without it being validated and approved by their parents.

And here's the truth: the pursuit of perfection and the craving for external approval is a never-ending cycle. It leaves you feeling exhausted, overwhelmed, and disconnected from your true self as you constantly seek validation from others to feel worthy.

I look back and can see all those times where I craved external approval and validation, and how the mask of perfectionism, robbed me of stepping into who I really was. It took a lot of inner work to accept and love where I was at, to embrace all parts of me and accept those parts that others couldn’t.

I stopped criticising myself, doubting myself, demanding more of myself to please others.

And most importantly, I started to trust myself, to trust my intuition, make decisions from my heart, not from my past limiting patterns or masks or others’ expectations of me.

Slowly I released the need for anyone elses' approval and I certainly didn’t want my girls growing up seeking approval or validation outside of them for their worth.

I knew this pattern had to stop with me, so my girls could embrace who they really are and know that their worth is never something outside of them, its always an inside job.

If you’re a parent and are still driven by the need for external validation and approval and can see the mask of perfectionism in your life, I invite you to think about what its actually costing you and to question if you’re happy for your children to carry that heavy emotional burden too?

Because, unless you resolve this in you, you will pass it onto your children to resolve.

If you want to break generational patterns that are keeping you feeling stuck and disconnected in your relationships, fill out the application form below, and lets chat.