Update: Letting Go Of Perfection (Easter 2023 Edition)

Happy Friday, readers! I’m coming at you with a shorter-than-usual post today, an update on a previous post, as life has been a little hectic and busy this week (spoiler alert: I may potentially have some news to share in a future post). It’s not very money related (but somehow I think everything relates to money in some way). I hope you enjoy!

Some of you may remember this post from a few months back where I talked about the importance of letting go of perfection. I also described a big a-ha moment I had about perfection, specifically when it came to hosting. And not just any hosting event, but hosting Easter dinner at our house.

If you don’t want to go back and read the full post, no worries! The short version is that last year, Mr. Dink and I decided to host Easter dinner for the first time. We were super excited about being able to host one of the bigger meals/yearly celebrations for our family. Like we were finally real adults!

But then, seemingly out of nowhere after the decision had been made, I got super squirrelly and anxious about it.

The whole experience brought up a lot of stuff for me that I had never really processed.

I got through hosting Easter Dinner 2022, but it was a struggle.

Being able to decompress afterward with Mr. Dink, I realized how all of my anxiety around hosting came not from the fact that I didn’t like hosting, or that I was worried about being a bad host, but from my constant striving for perfection that had been with me since I was little.

This was my big a-ha, and it has been a source of constant reflection and work for me this past year. I have learned to (and am still working on) letting go of perfection so I can live true to myself with less stress and anxiety.

So, for those who celebrate, you know that Easter 2023 occurred last Sunday. We hosted again, and I’m thrilled to share an update!

In short, it was fabulous.

Mr. Dink and I love to cook, and we had perfected our recipes/experience from Easter 2022.

I had minimal anxiety leading up to the dinner, and even on the day of!

My mom also had her longest visit with us to date. We finally have our attached apartment in decent shape, as we’re gearing up to test the waters with AirBnB (more on that probably in a future post!). So we had my mom stay there to 1) of course tell us how it was and what was missing and 2) to give her more space and privacy. The guest room on our side of the house is also my office, so it is tough to have guests stay longer than just the weekend. This way, she was able to come on Thursday and do her own thing while I worked on Friday. She also didn’t have to rush out on Monday morning. It was great to be with her for an extended period of time, without feeling like we were on top of each other/getting in each other’s way. I digress.

Anyway, back to our topic for today, Easter dinner! At one point in the days leading up to Easter, my mom (very characteristically) said the following off-handed comment during a conversation: “oh, I want to give you some space, you must be so stressed out.”

As I alluded to, this is a very normal thing for my mom to say to me. Comments like these used to drive me crazy. But because of all the processing I’d done since last year’s Easter dinner, I knew what was buried beneath this comment. I realized that if she were in fact the one hosting this event, she would be super stressed out. So of course, I must be too.

With this knowledge, I calmly responded with: “why would I be stressed out?”

“Oh, just because you’re hosting Easter dinner and I know you have a lot to do.”

This was big for us. Because, in the past, I would have been stressed out. I would have let this type of comment get to me, get me stressed out, to the point where I would eventually end up snapping at her. I would feel bad, apologize, and the cycle would continue, without getting to the root of the problem.

Now, because I had done the work to figure out where my own anxiety was coming from, I was able to have a different conversation with her.

I was able to tell her that, in fact, I wasn’t stressed out at all! Mr. Dink and I knew exactly what we were making, we’re a good team, and there was nothing to be worried about!

For me, this was revolutionary. I’m not sure if it changed anything for her (I certainty hope so), but that doesn’t matter. Because it meant the world to me. Because I’m proud of myself for the work I’ve done, for the processing time I’ve had. And all I can really do is lead by example and show her how I’ve changed.

Because even with Mr. Dink’s aunt constantly texting me leading up to the event with suggestions of what I “should” make for dinner (I know she means well, but really??), I wasn’t stressed.

Because even though when Mr. Dink’s aunt and her partner arrived for dinner, I was in the middle of making the roux for the scalloped potatoes, Mr. Dink was still in the shower, and the ceiling was leaking due to said shower (no joke people, I can’t make this shit up), I wasn’t stressed.

I wasn’t stressed because I now know where my anxious feelings around hosting were coming from. Because I’ve reflected so much on what happened last year, I’m more in tune with my thoughts and feelings, and I’m able to better understand them. So this year, if I felt any anxiety feelings bubbling up, I could attack them head on. I was able to draw on my past experiences to help present me in the moment.

I wasn’t stressed because I’m now more confident in my hosting abilities. Because I had processed and figured out where those anxious feelings were coming from when it came to hosting, I could be more confident in my abilities. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to host, or that I wasn’t good at hosting. It was about my issues with perfection. Once I identified this, I was able to stop the negative self-talk about being a “bad host” because I knew that was not the source of my anxiety. Being confident in myself led to me being a confident host (which, let me say, really came in handy during the aforementioned leak situation!).

And finally, I wasn’t stressed because this year, I gave less fucks. Apologies for the language, but I honestly couldn’t think of a better way to say it. Just like I shared in the original post, I had to learn to let go and essentially care a bit less to help break the cycle of constantly striving for perfection. I’m telling you, once you start the process of stepping off that perfection wheel by caring a bit less (for me, mostly about what other people think of you), it’s a slippery slope. Little by little, every day, I feel myself giving fewer and fewer fucks about what others think about me, how others think I should live my life. I’ve started listening to my own voice more than I listen to others. And I never want to stop.

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What holds you back from living your best life, the way perfection used to hold me back? How did your Easter go (if you celebrate)? Let me know in the comments, I’d love to hear from you!