Seeking Perfection

Are you a perfection seeker? Some days I am. I personally find that when I am seeking out perfection in an activity, I become paralyzed. I become hung up on the smallest details, unable to move on to enjoy my project.

I recently decided to challenge myself in NOT seeking perfection. Today was my daughter’s first birthday and I hosted a nice little party for her.  When I started thinking about her ideal party a couple of months ago (yes, I know she is 1), I was overly focused on finding the perfect invitation. I opted for e-invites. They were “perfect”; I could track who opened them and who responded. 

Next was the planning of the food. I originally was looking to have a barbeque. After some deep thoughts on food preparation, especially knowing how my family does not RSVP, I chose to just do a dessert party- specifically cupcakes. I thought it would be “perfect” in that I could make them during the week, freeze them, and frost the morning of the party. This would relieve some of the last minute stress of morning preparation.

The biggest part of letting go of perfection came with my cupcakes. I feel that what I cook tends to be mighty tasty (or so my husband says), however I lack in the presentation area. I resorted to my go to chocolate cake recipe and prepared as cupcakes. They cooked all sorts of funky and lopsided, which started to foil my letting go of perfection plan. I remained positive and decided they were “rustic”, and they tasted amazing.

Next came the frosting of the cupcakes. I dug out my fancy frosting tips and of course, did not have a pastry bag. No worries, I just snipped off the bottom of a zip lock bag. But of course the frosting had other plans and did not come out of the tip. Again, no worries, I can just snip off the bottom of the bag and frost from that.  Well, what came out was a sort of ribbon looking blob. Again, I decided not to stress and put the better looking cupcakes on the pedestal and the imperfect ones had a flag placed in them to hide their flaws and I moved on.

Skip ahead to the party. I had strategically planned the party around my daughter’s naps. However my daughter had so much fun she needed an early nap. Instead of stressing and hoping people would understand, I just put her down and opted for no excuses- she was tired, end of story. The amazing thing was people actually understood. And what was I left with- a great time! It ended up being a perfect party after all.

So my question to you is in what area do you seek perfection? What happens when you let go of that expectation?